The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-05-10
undermining Mother Goose
How Dear Old Nonsense Might BE
Made Instructive,

Made Instructive.
The vandal hand of progress,
which never rests and holds nothing
sacred, is now stretched out toward
that precious heritage of childhood,
the fairy tale. why" demands the
educational reformer, confuse the
minds of children by encouraging
them to live in an impossible world
peopled with gnomes and fairies and
genii when the same enjoyment can
be given and more improvement as
sured by true stories from the lives
of George Washington and Benjamin
Franklin, Richard Arkwright and
James Watt, and host of later
worthies?"
Why, indeed? Nature doubtless
had the same double purpose in view
in planting an imagination in the
mind of man as in burdening his
body with a vermiform appendix; to
prevent his becoming too well salts
fled with life, and to give the scien-
tific men something to dig out The
myths of the classic era, the miracles
Middle Ages, have gone their way
before the onslaughts of the higher
criticism, and now Cinderella and
Santa Claus, Aladdin and Jack the
Giant KILLER must follow.
To old fogles there is something
pathetic about all this destruction;
but if we are bound to have it, why
stop short OF a complete job? Let
us go back to the roots of things
and modernize the Mother Goose
melodies taught to infants on their
nurses knee, so that even at that
early age they may scrape acquaint-
ance with the real world in which
they are doomed to live. 1t will be
necessary to call in the service of
poetical experts for this task al
most anyone who can handle a liter
airy jack-knife is capable of whiting
out new tail pieces for the old fami-
liar jingles. The rhymes and meter
of the revised versions are sure to be
at least as good as the original
forms. For instance, it is never too
soon to begin impressing sanitary
impressions upon the young, so we
might sing this while clasping baby's
fat palms together
Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake bakers man!
Pat it, and bake it, as fast as you can
But sterilize everything first, for my
wish is
To keep all bacteria out of my dishes.
Next to it's introduction to the de-
tails of everyday domestic life, the
best thing we can give the infant
mind is bent toward patriotism,
through some unobtrusive suggestion
like this:
Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat, where have you
been?
I've been to London, to see the queen.
Well, Pussy, comparing their relative
powers,
Is monarchical government better
than ours?
That will make easier, perhaps, the
succeeding educational step, an eco
nomic lesson from an old master:-
Bah. bah, black sheep, have you any
wool?
res, sir, that | have three bags FULL
One for my master, and one for the
mill,
And one for the congressman who
framed the tariff bill.
Of course, among the first ques-
tions to which the child will have to
address his intellect as it natures,
is the cause of the continued in
crease in the cost of living. Why not
then equip him at once with the
is still so unsophisticated as to look
upon the whole thing as fun? Let
us try this stanza, which brings in
our familiar bogies, the middleman
and the stockyard barons:
lii diddle, diddle, the man in the
middle
Made cows jump over the moon.
The Beef Trust roared, while prices
scared
Where they won't come down
again soon!
Or we might take shy at the same
general theme in a somewhat broad
er aspect
Old Mother Hubbard went to the
cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone;
But when she got there the cupboard
was bare,
And so her poor dog had none.
Although Mother Hubbard marveled
at this,
The simple fact, of course, is
That she'd neglected to conserve
Her natural resources.
There is another view of a kindred
situation which we cannot in these
days afford to ignore:-
This little pig had roast beef for din
ner,
This little pig had none.
The last little pig is toiling serf
Who must feed on crusts and sich f;
While the one with the well-flled
paunch belongs
To the predatory rich.
Passing from economics to NOR
ais, here's ditty on the enforce
ment of the liquor laws in up-to-date
vernacular:-
Sing a song of sixpence, bottle full OF
rye,
Four and twenty bar-keeps captured
by a Spy