Children's books and reading

by Montrose Jonas Moses

Folk-lore stretches into the Valhalla of the past; our heritage consists of an assemblage of the heroic through all ages. A history of distinctive books for children must enter into minute traceries of the golden thread of legend, fable, and belief, of romance and adventure; it must tell of the wanderings of rhyme and marvel, under varied disguises, from mouth to mouth, from country to country, naught of richness being taken away from them, much of new glory being added. But for our immediate purposes, we imagine all this to be so; we take it for granted that courtier and peasant have had their fancies. The tales told to warriors are told to children, and in turn by nurses to these children’s children. The knight makes his story by his own action in the dark forest, or in the king’s palace; he appears before the hut of the serf, and his horse is encircled by a magic light. The immortal hero is kept immortal by what is heroic in ourselves.

Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) was a product of court life; and the fable was the literary form introduced to amuse the corsaged ladies of Versailles. La Fontaine was the cynic in an age of hypocrisy and favouritism, and one cannot estimate his work fully, apart from the social conditions fostering it. He was steeped in French lore, and in a knowledge of the popular tales of the Middle Ages. He was licentious in some of his writing, and wild in his living; he was a friend of Fouquet, and he knew Molière, Racine, and Boileau. He was a brilliant, unpractical satirist, who had to be supported by his friends, and who was elected to the Academy because his monarch announced publicly that he had promised to behave. Toward the end of his life he atoned for his misdemeanours by a formal confession.

There was much of the child heart in La Fontaine, and this characteristic, together with the spleen which develops in every courtier, aided him in his composition of the Fables. Unclean his tales may be, likened to Boccaccio, but the true poet in him produced incomparable verses which have been saved for the present and will live far into the future because of the universality of their moral. The wolf and dog, the grasshopper and ant, all moved in silks and satins at the court of Louis XIV, and bowed for social rank, some trailing their pride in the dust, others raised to high position through the fortune of unworthy favour. So successfully did La Fontaine paint his pictures that the veiled allusions became lost in time beneath the distinct individuality of the courtiers’ animal prototypes. The universal in La Fontaine is like the universal in Molière and Shakespeare, but it has a wider appeal, for children relish it as their own.

Another figure was dominant at the court of Louis XIV—one equally as immortal as La Fontaine, though not so generally known—Charles Perrault (1628–1703). He was a brilliant genius, versatile in talent and genial in temper. He dabbled in law, he dabbled in architecture, and through it won the favour of Colbert. With an abiding love for children, he suggested and successfully carried the idea of keeping open the royal gardens for young Parisians. Through Colbert he became an Academician in 1671, and, with the energy which usually marked his actions, he set about influencing the rulings of that body. He was a man of progress, not an advocate of classical formalism. He battled long and hard with Boileau, who was foremost among the Classicists; his appeal was for the future rather than for the past. He was intellectually alert in all matters; probably, knowing that he possessed considerable hold upon the Academy, he purposely startled that august gathering by his statement that had Homer lived in the days of Louis XIV he would have made a better poet. But the declaration was like a burning torch set to dry wood; Boileau blazed forth, and the fight between himself and Perrault, lasting some time, became one of the most famous literary quarrels that mark the pages of history.

After Perrault retired to his home in the year 1686, and when he could have his children around him, he began the work which was destined to last. Lang calls him “a good man, a good father, a good Christian, and a good fellow.” It is in the capacity of father that we like to view him—taking an interest in the education of his children, listening to them tell their tales which they had first heard from their nurse; his heart became warmed by their frank, free camaraderie, and it is likely that these impromptu story hours awakened in him some dim memories of the same legends told him in his boyhood.

There is interesting speculation associated with his writing of the “Contes de ma Mère l’Oye.” They were published in 1697, although previously they had appeared singly in Moetjen’s Magazine at the Hague. An early letter from Madame de Sévigné mentions the wide-spread delight taken by the nobles of the court in all “contes”; this was some twenty years before Perrault penned his. But despite their popularity among the worldly wise, the Academician was too much of an Academician to confess openly that he was the author of the “contes.” Instead, he ascribed them to his son, Perrault Darmancour. This has raised considerable doubt among scholars as to whether the boy should really be held responsible for the authorship of the book. Mr. Lang wisely infers that there is much evidence throughout the tales of the mature feeling and art of Perrault; but he also is content to hold to the theory that will blend the effort of old age and youth, of father and son.

The fact remains that, were it not for Perrault, the world might have been less rich by such immortal pieces as “The Three Wishes,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” “Red Riding Hood,” “Blue Beard,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Cinderella,” as they are known to us to-day. They might have reached us from other countries in modified form, but the inimitable pattern belongs to Perrault.

Another monument preserves his name, the discussion of which requires a section by itself. But consideration must be paid in passing to the “fées” of Marie Catherine Jumelle de Berneville, Comtesse D’Anois (Aulnoy) [1650 or 51–1705], who is responsible for such tales as “Finetta, the Cinder-Girl.”[22] Fortunately, to the charm of her fairy stories, which are written in no mean imitation of Perrault, there have clung none of the qualities which made her one of the most intriguing women of her period. She herself possessed a magnetic personality and a bright wit. Her married life began at the age of sixteen, and through her career lovers flocked to her standard; because of the ardour of one, she came near losing her head. But despite the fact that only two out of five of her children could claim legitimacy, they seem to have developed in the Comtesse d’Aulnoy an unmistakable maternal instinct, and an unerring judgment in the narration of stories. She is familiar to-day because of her tales, although recently an attractive edition of her “Spanish Impressions” was issued—a book which once received the warm commendation of Taine.

III. Mother Goose.

There has been a sentimental desire on the part of many students to trace the origin of Mother Goose to this country; but despite all effort to the contrary, and a false identification of Thomas Fleet’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Goose, or Vergoose, with the famous old woman, the origin is indubitably French. William H. Whitmore[23] sums up his evidence in the matter as follows: