“In this process of storing away in his brain the accumulated knowledge of the ages the child’s mind passes, with inconceivable rapidity, along the same route that the composite minds of his ancestors travelled, during their centuries of development. The impulse that causes him to want to hunt, to fish, to build brush huts, to camp out in the woods, to use his hands as well as his brain, is an inheritance from the past, when his primitive ancestors did these things. He should be helped to trace the route they followed with intelligence and understanding, he should be encouraged to know the woods, and all the great world of out-of-doors, to make and use the primitive weapons, utensils, toys, his ancestors made and used, to come into closer contact with the fundamental laws of nature, and thus to lay a groundwork for wholesome and practical thinking which cannot be gained in the classroom or the city streets.

“As has been said, the writer has tested the methods outlined above. The chapters in The First Days of Man are merely the things he has told his own children. It is of interest to note that one of these, a boy of seven, on first going to school, easily outstripped in a single month a dozen or more children who had been at school almost a year, and was able to enter a grade a full year ahead of them. The child in question is not in the least precocious, but having understood the knowledge he has gained, he is able to make use of it, he has a definite mental perspective, a sure grasp on things, which makes study of any kind easy for him, and progression correspondingly rapid.”

To say that Jungle Tales, Adventures in India, by Howard Anderson Musser is a series of missionary tales of adventure in India, is to give no idea of the thrills within its covers. There are fights with tigers, bears and bandits, and there is one long fight against ignorance and disease, superstition and merciless greed. And the fighter? He was an American athlete, who had won honour on the track and football field. Great for boys!

iii

The English Who’s Who says: “Colonel Stevenson Lyle Cummins”—then follows a string of degrees—“David Davies Professor of Tuberculosis, University College, South Wales, Monmouthshire, and Principal Medical Officer to the King Edward VII. Welsh National Memorial Association since 1921.... Entered Army 1897; Captain, 1900; Major, 1909; Lieutenant-Colonel, 1915; Colonel, 1918; served Nile Expedition, 1898 (medal with clasp, despatches); Sudan 1900, 1902; Sudan, 1904 (Clasp); Osmanieh 4th class, 1907; European War, 1914-18 (C.B., C.M.G., despatches six times, Brevetted Colonel); Legion of Honour (Officer), Couronne de Belgique (Officer); Col. 1918; Croix de Guerre (Belgian), 1918, retired from Army, 1921.”

But I don’t suppose that it was as a consequence of anything in that honourable record that Colonel Cummins wrote Plays for Children, in three volumes. I suppose it was in consequence of another fact which the English Who’s Who mentions (very briefly and abbreviatedly) as “four c.”

The possession of four children is a natural explanation of three volumes of juvenile plays.

But wait a moment! Did Colonel Cummins write them wholly for his youngsters? As I read these little plays, it seems to me that there is frequently an undercurrent of philosophy, truth, satire—what you will—which, unappreciated by the youngsters themselves, will make these household dramas ingratiating to their parents. At any rate, this is exceptional work; you may be sure it is, for publishers are not in the habit of bringing out an author’s three volumes of children’s plays all at one stroke, and that is what is happening with Colonel Cummins’s little dramas.

What is there to say in advance about The Fairy Flute, by Rose Fyleman? No one of the increasing number who have read her utterly charming book of poems for children, Fairies and Chimneys, will need more than the breath that this book is coming. I shall give myself (and I think everyone who reads this) the pleasure of quoting a poem from Fairies and Chimneys. This will show those who do not know the work of Rose Fyleman what to expect:

PEACOCKS Peacocks sweep the fairies’ rooms; They use their folded tails for brooms; But fairy dust is brighter far Than any mortal colours are; And all about their tails it clings In strange designs of rounds and rings; And that is why they strut about And proudly spread their feathers out.