Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-03-13
CHILDREN AND BOOKS.
Little Folk Choose the Literature
i: Which Suits Them.

From the New York Tribune.
Children have established classic lftera.
;ture Of their own, which they have made
immortal through their own preferences
and in which they permit no officious
grown-up to interfere said woman libra
r1an. Juveniles prepared with the greatest
care by persons who know all about what
children should read they have discarded
by the ton, and books that were never writ
ten for them they have calmly made their
own. Various old writers would stare with
amazement and chagrin could they come to
life and discover the present status of their
work.
"For instance Robinson Crusoe was
never written for children, but they took 1t
as their inheritance. 'Gulliver's Travels
appeared as a biting satire the times.
The children knew nothing of satire, but in
all sweetness made it their own. Baron
Munchausen brought out his volume OF
quaint lies in 1885, a take-of on the
travellers tales of the day. The children
have preserved it. Arabian Nights was a
storehouse of oriental romance, enshrinng
the folklore of a people 1t was never in
tended for the nursery, but the children ap
propriated it, as they did Don Quixote,'
written to cast ridicule on the decaying in
stitution of chivalry. Aesops fables We're
moral and political reflections, directed
pointedly at grown-ups. They have sur
vived through the children alone. The old
cnap DOCKS catered the literary taste OF
the masses in the sixteenth, seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. They were print
ed in the worst possible manner, on the
worst possible paper, and illustrated with
the worst possible pictures, frequently bear
Ing no relation whatever to the text. They
disappeared about the middle of the eigh-
teenth century, but not before the children
had cleaned from them Beauty and the
Beast Little Red Riding Hood Blue
Beard Cinderella Jack and the Bean
stalk 'Reynard the Fox, Tom Thumb
Dick Wilmington The House That Jack
Built. and The Sleeping Beauty, who final
became classic There were many other
stories in the old chap books but not meet
ing the taste Of the children they went
speedily to the dust heap. Mother Goose
Of the race, was first reduced to print in
1850 by John Newbery, a. printer who, 1t is
sa4u, took the immortal rhymes from the
lips of his mother-in-law as she sang his
children to sleep. Every succeeding genera
ton of children has had the Identical taste
of the little Newberys.
Scott. Dickens, Mayne Reid and Cooper
had not the slightest idea Of writing for
children, yet 1t Is the children who keep
them alive. A grown person rarely reads
one of them nowadays. The Sunday school
book has run a varied course since Robert
Raikes established the first Sunday school
in 1850. 1t was first dogmauc then simply
religious, then only moral. In its effort to
adapt itself to the taste Of its public: and
not one Of its tribe has survived Maria
Edgeworth. Jane and Ann Taylor and Mrs.
Barbauld wrote the most careful little books
for children early in the last century, but
the children contemptuously left them to
die. Certain Juveniles, however, they have
been graciously pleased to accept. like the
stories of Hans Christian Andersen and the
Grimm brothers. which they pounced upon
with avidity as soon as they were trans
lated. The girls Of America have placed
Little Women and Little Men in their
hp nf an whap uy.afpf 1fffla oh
Alice came straying out OF Wonderland
they gave her place there. too"