Norwich bulletin., 1921-09-29
CHILD TRAINING AT HOME
The Educative ya1ue of Mother Coos


 By Anna May Brady
 Every child should have access to well illustrated copy of Mother Goose. not only because these little jingles rep resent the heart beats of the race but because they have within them great ed- ucative value. The tiny babe is lulled by their rythm of which all the primitive in him responds and his eye is caught by the pictures long before he is able to in terpret them. Grown-ups never outIfve them. Poor indeed is the chud who is | denied this foundation of the classics. Mother Goose represents the first at | tempt of the race to give us a literature. Away back in the beginning of time, long before the days of books, these vers- es developed. The race no doubt was in that rythmic stage where people loved | to swing and sway their bodies to Iru- 1 sic, queer music it was, too, for we hear | that it was often made by beating stones or sticks together. but always the rytIim was the appealing thing. So too, the 1 sounds of rhyming words tickled their ears and when they first developed these | jingles they were so pleased with them that they repeated them over and over handing them, down from generation TO generation, each generation refining yet leaving the plot unchanged.
 These rhymes while but a sentence or two in length are well-night perfect in construction. They will pas any test | to which we subject adult literature There is a plot introduction, climax and conclusion. The characters dance on and off again, yet so clearly are they represented that as long as life lasts we have clear picture of them. With only few words to describe them, Little Be Peep, Jack and Jill, and Little Miss Nuf- fet, have as well defined places in oul our minds as Othella, Hamlet or Lady Macbeth.
 Our children of the pre-school and kindergarten age are in this same stage of development They too are suscert- ible to rythm, they love to swing and sway and hop to music, and their ear is also caught by the sound of rhymine words. They need material like Mother Goose for it is to them what Shakes peare is to the adult Because these rhymes are the product of many minds they are richer than any thing one per. son can give them.
 Many of us used to think that Mother Goose made up these rhymes in Sos ton Town long. ago, and we liked tC think of them as distinctly American but such is not the case. These jingle. came down 10 us from the primitive race. and Mother Goose was only a very clevel | SSAANA so many children happy that in her homo, we call them Mother Goose rhymes.
 The child who is brought up on Moth CT Goose learns to read naturally. H memories the jingles from hearing moth CT say them and locates them by tn pictures. Finally he sees them as wort units and is able to recognize the sam words in different rhymes. This equip him with a working vocabulary whicl is of inestimable value when he enter school Best of all it has not been worl but only play
 A list of Mother Goose collections f appended:
 A Book of Nursery Rhymes Editet by Chas. Welsh. Published by D. c Heath & O., Chicago .... ST The Nursery Rhyme Book. Edited bI Lang, illustrated by Leslie Brooks, Pub , lished by Frederick Warne & Go. New 1ork -... S3.O'
 Mother Goose. Illustrated by Kat Greenaway Published by Fredericl Warne & Co.. New York .. s1 .Ol
 Mother Goose Annual, illustrated b!