I had, and said so.
"The coloring and decoration of their rooms is beautiful—their clothes are beautiful—and simple—you've seen that, too?"
"Yes, dear girl. It's because I've seen—and heard—and noticed the surprisingness of the New Child that I sit here fairly guzzling information. Pray proceed to the literature!"
"Literature is the most useful of the arts—the most perfect medium for transfer of ideas. We wish to have the first impressions in our children's minds, above all things, true. All the witchery and loveliness possible in presentation—but the things presented are not senseless and unpleasant.
"We have plenty of 'true stories,' stories based on real events and on natural laws and processes; but the viewpoint from which they are written has changed; you'll have to read some to see what I mean. But the major difference is in our stories of the future, our future here on earth. They are good stories, mind, the very best writers make them; good verses and pictures, too. And a diet like that, while it is just as varied and entertaining as the 'once upon a time' kind, leaves the child with a sense that things are going to happen—and he, or she, can help.
"You see, we don't consider anything as done. To you, as a new visitor, we 'point with pride,' but among ourselves we 'view with alarm.' We are just as full of Reformers and Propagandists as ever, and overflowing with plans for improvement.
"These are the main characteristics of the new child literature: Truth and Something Better Ahead."
"I don't like it!" I said firmly. "No wonder you dodged about so long. You've apparently made a sort of pap out of Grad-grind and Rollo, and feed it to these poor babies through a tube!"
This time my sister rebelled. She came firmly to my side and pulled my hair—precisely as she used to do forty years ago and more—the few little hairs at the crown which still troubled me in brushing—because of being pulled out straight so often.
"You shall have no more oral instruction, young man," said she. "You shall be taken about and shown things; you shall 'Stop! Look! Listen!' until you admit the advantages I have striven in vain to pump into your resisting intellect—you Product of Past Methods!"