There is one collection of fairy tales that should come into the boy's possession about the end of the third school year, and that book is the excellent work of the brothers Grimm, whatever be the title. The one superior translation is the one made by Edward Taylor about 1826, and a reprint of it issued in 1878, with Cruikshank's etchings and Ruskin's introduction. But there are many good and simple translations that are well illustrated. After these highly imaginative tales of the German fireside, there should be owned a good translation of the romantic and refined tales of the North, the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. To these stories are many excellent illustrations, including those of Stratton, Tegner, and Dulac. It may not be possible and maybe not desirable to own editions of the tales of D'Aulnoy, Laboulaye, Hauff, and others, for the best of their stories may be found in some compilations. Among these are "Mother Goose Nursery Tales" issued by Nister, Andrew Lang's "Blue Fairy Book," "Big Book of Fairy Tales" collected by Walter Jerrold, "A Child's Book of Stories" illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith and the recently issued attractive edition of "The Fairy Book" by Dinah Maria Mulock. A distinct service could have been rendered to children if Andrew Lang had selected the best of the stories from his voluminous and unequally good colour fairy books and had issued them in one large, well-made volume with artistic illustrations.
And yet there remains the greatest and most wonderful of all fairy tales, the "Tales of a Thousand and One Nights," to be begun with the easier tales now, but only to be enjoyed thoroughly in the upper grammar grades. No other book is so romantic or so entrancing, nor does anybody ever get too old to read it. It worked its spell on Coleridge, for he wrote: "Give me the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments' which I used to watch, till the sun shining on the bookcase appeared, and, glowing full upon it, gave me the courage to take it from the shelf." And was it not this book that made wonderful little Marjorie Fleming willing to sleep at the foot of the bed where she could continually read it? The translation made by Edward William Lane in 1839 and illustrated by William Harvey under his direction will never be surpassed; but Jonathan Scott's translation is easier for the boy to read. Many well-illustrated but not always well-edited editions may be found.
Will a boy read "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"? Should a boy read "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"? Yes and yes! Any boy who cannot enjoy the most delightful fooling that was ever put into a book deserves the greatest of sympathy. He is certainly full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. Where else was there ever such clever and curious nonsense? What mathematician other than Dodgson ever put before boys and girls such enduring work? It is a case where two and two does not always make four, but it does always make the pleasing thing. Much that goes as serious literature is not half so wise as is the playfulness of this book, nor is it so worthy of being thoroughly known and appreciated. Of course there are a few perpendicular people who see not that it has abiding charms. They cannot double or shake to the mood of its nonsense—nor do they find it grow "curiouser and curiouser" with each reading. Yet it is a classic for children, and it is going to endure.
As a general rule, books for children are cast in a rather serious mood. This is true of the myth and the romantic fairy tale. But the element of humour creeps into the English and the German household tales, for humour is necessary to all earnest living. How far this sense of humour is to be developed is a question hard to answer. This much is true, however: in mature years and under the full responsibility of life, a keen sense of humour is about the only thing that will save a man from himself at times, preserve his balance when he is nearing the borderland of tragedy. Now what is to be the nature of this humour? Is it to be the insipid burlesque that finds its pleasure in the medical almanac and the comic supplement? Or is it to be the kind that wears the sock with brains and taste, the kind that Touchstone has? The latter is the one that sparkles and is worth while. It is the kind that the child starts with in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "The Rose and the Ring." It is the product of men who possess qualities of mind and heart such as Thackeray did. How Shakespeare must have doted on his jesters! And what musical nonsense refrains he wrote.
All this bears out De Quincey's saying that only a man of extraordinary talent can write nonsense. And nonsense literature is a test of the ability of a reader. Pitt once exclaimed: "Don't tell me of a man's being able to talk sense; every one can talk sense. Can he talk nonsense?" Now a child will talk nonsense and delight in it, even if it is nothing but a counting-out rhyme. Then he will come to prefer nonsense of a refined type, innocent and fantastic verse. A book of this kind that he will take a fancy to is Edward Lear's "Nonsense Songs"; and if it is the edition illustrated by Leslie Brooke, he will be grateful when a nonsense mood is on him. Ruskin called it the most beneficent and innocent of all nonsense books. The boy might start with this book, go to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," and then try "The Rose and the Ring." When he reaches the upper grammar grades, he will then enjoy the splendid retelling of "The Adventures of Don Quixote," by Judge Parry, with Walter Crane's illustrations. If he does this, on reaching man's estate he will keep some favourite translation of this wonderful book of Cervantes in a convenient pocket edition along with his "Pickwick Papers."
Before going to the class of books based on myths, one brief work must be mentioned, not only because it marks an epoch in the making of children's books, but also because it is a child's classic with real merit, and about the only one on such a theme. Nearly all others of this kind are prudish, priggish, and inartistic. This one happens to have a loftiness of tone. Its style is as charming as this whimsical title: "The History of Little Goody Two Shoes, otherwise called Mrs. Marjory Two Shoes, the means by which she acquired her learning and wisdom, and in consequence thereof her estate; set forth at large for the benefit of those
"Who from a state of Rags and Care,
And having Shoes but half a Pair;
Their Fortune and their Fame would fix,
And gallop in a Coach and Six."
If any one is in doubt as to who wrote this book, the inscription "to all young gentlemen and ladies who are good, or intend to be good" ought to convince him. Intend to be good, was not that Goldsmith—and the rest of us? An edition of this historic story with pictures after the original woodcuts of 1765 should be in the hands of every child.
Though America's contribution to children's literature of an enduring type has been limited, it is gratifying to know that America's most finished artist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, has given to that literature two books that every boy must know, "Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys" and "Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys; a Second Wonder-Book." That every boy who is going to become a mature reader of good books needs to know the myths of Greece and Rome, goes without saying. Now he had better learn these from a book having a literary touch than from the ordinary telling of text-books. For this reason he should completely master these two books by Hawthorne. The illustrated edition of the former by Walter Crane and George Wharton Edwards' illustrations of the latter are both fine. Not so good as these two, yet necessary, is Charles Kingsley's "Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children." And the telling of the story of the Odyssey by Charles Lamb in his "Adventures of Ulysses" is good to read, but rather difficult before the last year of the grammar grades. The wonderful exploits of the heroes in the Iliad should be familiar to every boy, and he can get them about all in Bulfinch's "Age of Fable" as well as anywhere else. This book he must surely own, and whether it is called merely a text-book or not, it is the best work that has yet appeared on the mythology of the world as it is found in classical allusions of English books. If he learns the story of the siege of Troy and the return to Ithaca from this book, he may want to hear Chapman speak out loud and bold a few years later.
Does any schoolboy from a home other than one in which Puritan notions yet prevail read "Pilgrim's Progress"? If he does not, the fault is not in the book. It is as interesting as it is vitally true, and has been positively helpful. According to Macaulay, it has been loved by those too simple to admire it. There is really no such thing as an uninteresting great book. There are uninterested people, though there should not be an uninterested normal boy. If there is, he is a victim of the emasculating process of sugar-coated teaching, parental indulgence, and vaudeville amusement. Or maybe he has the habit of the boy's series, that cuts all characters to the same fashion, the fashion of prudery. In either case he will never be a pilgrim. Of course it would be foolish to insist on a boy's reading many such books, even if there were more like it written. You might as well insist on seven sermons a week for a man. One in seven days seems often enough to be effective; and one great book like this one, if well mastered, is all that the boy needs. In mature years he can again read it and marvel at its intrinsic greatness and find it something of a reflection of his own experiences in life. And by having done this he may chance to read such great poetical allegories as the "Faerie Queene" and the "Divine Comedy."