Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1899-08-11
WAR ON MOTHER GOOSE.
Mothers Club of New York Has Dis
covered Her Rhymes to BE I'm
fit for Childish Minds.

From the New York Sun.
War has been declared against Mother
Goose by the Mothers Clubs of the state.
Her rhymes are not charming, but bar
barrie. they say, and they will no longer
admit them into the nurseries. The move
against Mother Goose in the Mothers
Clubs seems to be simultaneous. New York
city, Oswego, Rome and Syracuse have all
condemned her. They suggest that kinder
garten stories and songs be substituted for
her rhymes. Mrs. Arthur J. Wells. of
Syracuse, who is one of the most active
workers in tine state organization of the
Society fer the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, presented the argument against
Mother Goose in an address before the
Mothers Club, of Syracuse, last week.
1T is with a feeling of delicacy.' she
said, that we assail any of the traditions
of the past Some of them, although
worthless, are so tfme.honored that we
have learned to accept them without criti-
cism for our children because We We're
taught them in our childhood. We do not
stop to look back and trace through our
own lives the influence OF such traditions.
To-day l would ask you to imagine your
self an entire stranger to the literature of
babyhood and look at the question with
impartiality.
intelligently use all the wise methods to
make the environment of a child such as
to develop all the good and dwarf all the
evil which inheritance gave. The channels
to a baby's mind are through what he sees
and what he hears. And right here. when
the young mind and the delicate nervous
organization are subject to the eye and
ear, l want to enter my protest against
the vulgar. senseless jangle of some Of the
sainted Mother Goose rhymes and the
blood curdling tales that as children we
used to hear and grow chilly over, and that
are told with no improvements to this
day! One of the first rhymes sung for a
babys' edification is that delightful pic
ture of animal life which begins:
'Hi diddle diddle, The cat and the fiddle!
The COW jumped over the moon!
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the dish away with the spoon.
"All the child knows of animal life Is
what you are teaching him, and IL he gets
false ideas it is because you have given
him wrong perspective, which his baby
rhyme that is true? There Is no wit in
Mother Goose: often vulgarity, and usu-
ally bad grammar. These are examples:
1.-The white dove sat the castle wall;
bend my bow and shoot her shall.
"a archer.
And shot at frog.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed.
And here comes a chopper to chop OF your head!
Money want and money I'll have.
II you don't give money
I'll sweep you to your grave.
when look back on the stories used
to hear-Jack and the Beanstalk'-with its
terrible
Zee, q. 70, FUN.
l smell the blood OF Englishman;
Dead or alive must have somei
Uttered in sepulchral voice, 1 can again
feel the sensation of chills and the terror
that made me cover my head with the bed
clothes. And from the memory of it all I
protest earnestly against such grewsome
tales for children"
Members of the clubs say there is need
of literature of some kind for very young
children, but it should be free, they think,
from suggestions of cruelty or terror. THE
Arabian Nights" also comes under the ban.
Il was shockedp SAID h one . of the club WON
bian Nights to find it such an undesirable
book for any child"
1t is proposed by the mothers clubs to
substitute for Mother Goose" the rhymes
of Mother Truth collection of nursery
songs ON such natural subjects as animals.