than the meeting of the General Court, which was responsible for the preparation of Cotton's "Milk for Babes," and precede by a century the date when an American story-book literature was recognized as very different from that written for English children. He who learns his letters fair, Shall have a coach and take the air. Our king the good No man of blood. Royal Primer, Newbery, 1762 The New England Primer, 1762 CHAPTER II 1747-1767 The Play-Book in England HE vast horde of story-books so constantly poured TH into modern nurseries makes it difficult to realize that the library of the early colonial child consisted of such books as have been already described. The juvenile books to-day are multiform. The quantities displayed upon shop-counters or ranged upon play-room shelves include a variety of subjects bewildering to all but those whose business necessitates a knowledge of this kind of literature. For the little child there is no lack of gayly colored pictures and short tales in large print; for the older boys and girls there lies a generous choice, ranging from Bunny stories to Jungle Books, or they "May see how all things are, Seas and cities near and far. The contrast is indeed extreme between that scanty fare of dull sermons and "The New England Primer" given to the little people of the early eighteenth century, and this superabundance prepared with lavish care for the nation of American children. The beginning of this complex juvenile literature is, therefore, to be regarded as a comparatively modern invention of about seventeen hundred and forty-five. From that date can be traced the slow growth of a literature written with an avowed intention of furnishing amusement as well as instruc tion; and in the toy-books published one hundred and fifty years ago are found the prototypes of the present modes of bringing fun and knowledge to the American fireside. The question at once arises as to the reason why this literature came into existence; why was it that children after seventeen hundred and fifty should have been favored in a way unknown to their parents? To even the casual reader of English literature the answer is plain, if this subject of toy-books be regarded as of near kin to the larger body of writing. It has been somewhat the custom to consider children's literature as a thing wholly apart from that of adults, probably because the majority of the authors of these little tales have so generally lacked the qualities indispensable for any true literary work. In reality the connection between the two is somewhat like that of parent and child; the smaller body, though lacking in power, has closely imitated the larger mass of writing in form and kind, and has reflected, sometimes clearly, sometimes dimly, the good or bad fashions that have shared the successive periods of literary history, like a child who unconsciously reproduces a parent's foibles or excellences. It is to England, then, that we must look to find the conditions out of which grew the necessity for this modern invention the story-book. The love of stories has been the splendid birthright of every child in all ages and in all lands. "Stories," wrote Thackeray,-"stories exist everywhere; there is no calculating the distance through which the stories have come to us, the number of languages through which they have been |