And if we pat some money out
We’ll buy ourselves a cake.
These are usually accompanied by appropriate finger plays.
Can we give a tangible reason for this choice? Why do all mothers turn to them with unwavering fidelity? Why do all children love them?
There can be but one answer. Before a child is able to follow the thread of the simplest story, he can enjoy the musical cadence of these rhymes. There is rhythm in their measure, an allurement of sound in their words and phrases which pleases his ear and satisfies his senses long before their words carry any intelligent thought to his mind.
Why are “memory gems” taught in the primary grades of the schools? The children understand but little of their true beauty of thought, but the cadence of the lines fixes them in the memory, and the deeper meaning comes with later years.
It is because this is so, because the children love musical cadence before they understand words, that mothers can follow or mingle the Mother Goose melodies with more modern verses such as those of Field or Stevenson. The little child will love such lines as these, by Henry van Dyke:
I guess the pussy-willows now
Are creeping out on every bough
Along the brook; and robins look