INTRODUCTORY
Origin. The history of realistic stories for children may well begin with the interest in juvenile education awakened by the great French teacher and author Rousseau (1712-1778). He taught that formal methods should be discarded in juvenile education and that children should be taught to know the things about them. The new method of education is illustrated, probably unintentionally, in The Renowned History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, the first selection in this section. Rousseau directly influenced the thought of such writers as Thomas Day, Maria Edgeworth, Dr. Aiken, and Mrs. Barbauld. The stories produced by these authors in the last quarter of the eighteenth century are among the first written primarily for the purpose of entertaining children. To these writers we are indebted for the creation of types of children's literature that modern authors have developed into the fascinating stories of child life, the thrilling stories of adventure, and the interesting accounts of nature that now abound in libraries and book stores.
The didactic period. When we read these first stories written for the entertainment of children, we can hardly fail to observe that each one presents a lesson, either moral or practical. The didactic purpose is so prominent that the term "Didactic Period" may be applied to the period from 1765 (the publication of Goody Two-Shoes) to 1825, or even later. The small amount of writing for children before this period was practically all for the purpose of moral or religious instruction; hence it was but natural for these first writers of juvenile entertainment stories to feel it their duty to present moral and practical lessons. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that these quaint old stories would not be interesting to children today, for they deal with fundamental truths, which are new and interesting to children of all ages.
In addition to the writers already mentioned, and represented by selections in the following pages, there were several others whose books are yet accessible and now and then read for their historical interest if not for any intrinsic literary value they may possess. One of these was Mrs. Sarah K. Trimmer (1741-1810), who, associated with the early days of the Sunday-school movement, wrote many books full of the overwrought piety which was supposed to be necessary for children of that earlier time. One of her books, The History of the Robins, stands out from the mass for its strong appeal of simple incident, and is still widely popular with very young readers. Hannah More (1745-1833) occupied a prominent place in the thought of her day as a teacher of religious and social ideas among the poorer classes. Her Repository Tracts, many of them in the form of stories, were devoted to making the poor contented with their lot through the consolations of a pious life. "The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain" was the most famous of these story-tracts, and there are still many people living whose childhood was fed upon this and like stories. Mrs. Sherwood's History of the Fairchild Family has never been out of print since the date of its first publication (1818), and in recent years has had two or three sumptuous revivals at the hands of editors and publishers. The almost innumerable books of Jacob Abbott and S. G. Goodrich ("Peter Parley") in America belong to this didactic movement. They were, however, more devoted to the process of instilling a knowledge of all the wonders of this great world round about us, and were considerably less pietistic than their English neighbors. The Rollo Books (24 vols.) are typical of this school.
The modern period. Charles Lamb apparently was one of the first to get the modern thought that literature for children should be just as artistic, just as dignified in its presentation of truth, and just as worthy of literary recognition, as literature for adults. In the hundred years since Lamb advanced his theory, students have gradually come to recognize the fact that good literature for children is also good literature for adults because art is art, whatever its form. In this connection, Lamb's feeling about the necessity for making children's books more vital found expression in a famous and much-quoted passage in a letter to Coleridge:
"Goody Two-Shoes is almost out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of the nursery; and the shopman at Newbery's hardly deigned to reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf, when Mary asked for them. Mrs. B.'s and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. Knowledge insignificant and vapid as Mrs. Barbauld's books convey, it seems must come to a child in the shape of knowledge, and his empty noodle must be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has learnt that a horse is an animal, and Billy is better than a horse, and such like; instead of that beautiful interest in wild tales, which made the child a man, while all the while he suspected himself to be no bigger than a child. Science has succeeded to poetry no less in the little walks of children than with men. Is there no possibility of averting this sore evil? Think what you would have been now, if, instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed with geography and natural history!"
The danger Lamb saw was averted. The bibliography on a preceding page indicates that about the middle of the nineteenth century many writers of first-rate literary ability began to write for young people. Among the number were Harriet Martineau, Captain Marryat, Charlotte M. Yonge, Thomas Hughes, and others. As we pass toward the end of that century and the beginning of the twentieth, the great names associated with juvenile classics are very noticeable, and with Miss Alcott, Mrs. Ewing, "Mark Twain," Stevenson, Kipling, Masefield, and a kindred host, childhood has come into its own.