“Just as the Twig is bent the Tree’s inclined,
’Tis Education forms the vulgar Mind”.
But the prefatory letter addressed “To all Parents, Guardians, Governesses, etc.”, illustrates the difference between the “fashioning” of trees and children. It is all pure Locke:
“Would you have a virtuous Son, instil into him the Principles of Morality early.... Would you have a wise Son, teach him to reason early. Let him read and make him understand what he reads. No Sentence should be passed over without a strict Examination of the Truth of it.... Subdue your children’s Passions, curb their Temper and make them subservient to the Rules of Reason; and this is not to be done by Chiding, Whipping or severe Treatment, but by Reasoning and mild Discipline.”
So much for the Parents who bought the Pretty Pocket Book. The rest is a judicious mixture of Amusement and Instruction for its readers. There are alphabets big and little, “select Proverbs for the use of children”, Moralités in plenty; but by the precise authority of Mr. Locke, there are also pictures of sorts, songs and games and rhymed fables. There is even a germ of the “Moral Tale” in accounts of good children, set down somewhat in the manner of seventeenth century “Characters”.
Between this and The Lilliputian Magazine came an instructive “Snuff-box” series: The Circle of the Sciences,[43] described in the Advertisement as “a compendious library, whereby each Branch of Polite Learning is rendered extremely easy and instructive”. But the Newbery Pedant is never quite serious. When, later, he sets himself to adapt the Newtonian System “to the Capacities of young Gentlemen and Ladies”, he does it in a Philosophy of Tops and Balls,[44] and seems immensely diverted by this notion of making the Giant Instruction stoop to play.
In 1745 John Newbery left the Bible and Crown, and set up at the Bible and Sun, near the Chapter House in St. Paul’s Churchyard. By this time he had become “a merchant in medicines as well as books” and had acquired a partnership in the sale of the famous fever powders of his friend Dr. James, which he advertised with other remedies in his nursery books, often working them into the story.
Like all really busy people, he could always find time for a new enterprise; but the “little books” were no mere relaxation from serious work. His son says that at this time he was “in the full employment of his talents in writing and publishing books of amusement and instruction for children”, and adds that “the call for them was immense, an edition of many thousands being sometimes exhausted during the Christmas holidays”.[45]
This, in fact, was a favourite “project” of Mr. Newbery’s, never forsaken for another, but continued up to the time of his death.
One can imagine him, delighted as Mr. Pepys with his puppet show,—inspecting the woodcuts, examining different patterns of Dutch flowered paper for the binding, deciding the exact size (4 inches by 2¾) for the biography of Mr. Trip; or watching the young apprentices (these paper covers were painted by children) each filling a row of diamond spaces with his appointed colour.