Dr. Holmes has somewhere remarked upon the total lack of American nature descriptions in the literature of his boyhood. No birds familiar to him were ever mentioned; nor were the flowers such as a New England child could ever gather. Only English larks and linnets, cowslips and hawthorn, were to be found in the toy-books and little histories read to him. “Everything was British: even the robin, a domestic bird,” wrote the doctor, “instead of a great fidgety, jerky, whooping thrush.” But when Peter Parley, Jacob Abbott, Lydia Maria Child, Mrs. Embury, and Eliza Leslie began to write short stories, the Annuals and periodicals abounded in American scenes and local color.
There was also another great incentive for writers to work for children. This was the demand made for stories from the American Sunday School Union, whose influence upon the character of juvenile literature was a force bearing upon the various writers, and whose growth was coincident with the development of the children’s periodical literature.
The American Sunday School Union, an outgrowth of the several religious publication societies, in eighteen hundred and twenty-four began to do more extensive work, and therefore formed a committee to judge and pronounce upon all manuscripts, which American writers were asked to submit.
The sessions of the Sunday-schools were no longer held for illiterate children only. The younger members of each parish or church were found upon its benches each Sunday morning or afternoon. To promote and to impress the religious teaching in these schools, rewards were offered for well-prepared lessons and regular attendance. Also the scholars were encouraged to use the Sunday-school library. For these different purposes many books were needed, but naturally only those stamped with the approval of the clergyman in charge were circulated.
The board of publication appointed by the American Sunday School Union—composed chiefly of clergymen of certain denominations—passed upon the merits of the many manuscripts sent in by piously inclined persons, and edited such of them as proved acceptable. The marginal notes on the pages of the first edition of an old Sunday-school favorite bear witness to the painstaking care of the editors that the leaflets, tracts, and stories poured in from all parts of the country should “shine by reason of the truth contained,” and “avoid the least appearance, the most indirect insinuations, of anything which can militate against the strictest ideas of propriety.” The tales had also to keep absolutely within the bounds of religion. Many were the stories found lacking in direct religious teaching, or returned because religion was not vitally connected with the plot, to be rewritten or sent elsewhere for publication.
The hundreds of stories turned out in what soon became a mechanical fashion were of two patterns: the one of the good child, a constant attendant upon Sabbath School and Divine Worship, but who died young after converting parent or worldly friend during a painful illness; the other of the unregenerate youth, who turned away from the godly admonition of mother and clergyman, refused to attend Sunday-school, and consequently fell into evil ways leading to the thief’s or drunkard’s grave. Often a sick mother was introduced to claim emotional attention, or to use as a lay figure upon which to drape Scripture texts as fearful warnings to the black sheep of the family. Indeed, the little reader no sooner began to enjoy the tale of some sweet and gentle girl, or to delight in the mischievous boy, than he was called upon to reflect that early piety portended an early death, and youthful pranks led to a miserable old age. Neither prospect offered much encouragement to hope for a happy life, and from conversations with those brought up on this form of religious culture, it is certain that if a child escaped without becoming morbid and neurotic, there were dark and secret resolves to risk the unpleasant future in favor of a happy present.
The stories, too, presented a somewhat paradoxical familiarity with the ways of a mysterious Providence. This was exceedingly perplexing to the thoughtful child, whose queries as to justice were too often hushed by parent or teacher. In real life, every child expected, even if he did not receive, a tangible reward for doing the right thing; but Providence, according to these authors, immediately caused a good child to become ill unto death. It is not a matter for surprise that the healthy-minded, vigorous child often turned in disgust from the Sunday-school library to search for Cooper’s tales of adventure on his father’s book-shelves.
The correct and approved child’s story, even if not issued under religious auspices, was thoroughly saturated with religion. Whatever may have been the practice of parents in regard to their own reading, they wished that of the nursery to show not only an educational and moral, but a religious tendency. The books for American children therefore divided themselves into three classes: the denominational story, to set forth the doctrines of one church; the educational tale; and the moral narrative of American life.
The denominational stories produced by the several Sunday-school societies were, as has been said, only a kind of scaffolding upon which to build the teachings of the various churches. But their sale was enormous, and a factor to be reckoned with because of their influence upon the educational and moral tales of their period. By eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, fifty-thousand books and tracts had been sent out by one Sunday-school society alone.[204-*] There are few things more remarkable in the history of juvenile literature than the growth of the business of the American Sunday School Union. By eighteen hundred and twenty-eight it had issued over seven hundred of these religious trifles, varying from a sixteen-page duodecimo to a small octavo volume; and most of these appear to have been written by Americans trying their inexperienced pens upon a form of literature not then recognized as difficult. The influence of such a flood of tiny books could hardly have been other than morbid, although occasionally there floated down the stream duodecimos which were grasped by little readers with eagerness. Such volumes, one reader of bygone Sunday-school books tells us, glimmered from the dark depths of death and prison scenes, and were passed along with whispered recommendation until their well-worn covers attracted the eye of the teacher, and were quickly found to be missing from library shelves. Others were commended in their stead, such as described the city boy showing the country cousin the town sights, with most edifying conversation as to their history; or, again, amusement of a light and alluring character was presumably to be found in the story of a little maid who sat upon a footstool at her mother’s knee, and while she hemmed the four sides of a handkerchief, listened to the account of missionary enterprises in the dark corners of the earth.
To us of to-day the small illustrations are perhaps the most interesting feature, preserving as they do children’s occupations and costumes. In one book we see quaintly frocked and pantaletted girls and much buttoned boys in Sunday-school. In another, entitled “Election Day,” are pictured two little lads watching, from the square in front of Independence Hall, the handing in of votes for the President through a window of the famous building—a picture that emphasizes the change in methods of casting the ballot since eighteen hundred and twenty-eight.