is comparatively a very Spartan for brevity. This may be a cheap way of writing books; but the books are a dear bargain to the buyer.
A book is not necessarily ill adapted to a child because its ideas and expressions are over his head. Some books, that were not written for children and would shock all Mr. Abbott's most dearly cherished ideas, are still excellent reading for them. Walter Scott's poems and novels will please an intelligent child. Cooper's Leatherstocking tales will not be read by the lad of fourteen more eagerly than by his little sister who cannot understand half of them. A child fond of reading can have no more delightful book than the "Faërie Queene," unless it be the "Arabian Nights," which was not written as a "juvenile." There are pages by the score in "Robinson Crusoe" that a child cannot understand,—and it is all the better reading for him on that account. A child has a comfort in unintelligible words that few men can understand. Homer's "Iliad" is good reading, though only a small part may be comprehended. (We are not, however, so much in favor of mystery as to recommend the original Greek.) Do our children of the year 1860 ever read a book called "The Pilgrim's Progress"? Hawthorne's "Wonder-Book" is good for children, though better for adults.
Then look at our second rule. What, after all, constitutes a "good moral"? We say that no book has a good moral which teaches a child that goodness and effeminacy, laziness and virtue, are convertible terms; no book is good that is "goody," no book is moral that moralizes. The intention may be good, but the teaching is not. Have as much as you will of poetical justice, but beware of making your books mere vehicles for conveying maxims of propriety. You cannot so deceive a child. You may talk at him, while pretending to tell him a story, but he will soon be shy of you. He has learned by bitter experience too much of the falseness of this world, and has been too often beguiled by sugared pills, to be slow in detecting the sugared pills of your literature,—especially, O Jacob Abbott! when the pills have so little, so very little, sugar.
Our notion of a good moral is a strong, breezy, open-air moral, one that teaches courage, and therefore truth. These are the most important things for a child to know, and a book which teaches these alone is moral enough. And these can be taught without offending the mind of the young reader, however keenly suspicious. But if you wish to teach gentleness and kindness as well, let them be shown in your story by some noisy boy who can climb trees, or some active, merry, hoydenish girl who can run like Atalanta; and don't imply a falsehood by attributing them always to the quiet children.
Mr. Abbott's books have spoiled our children's books, and have done their best to spoil our children, too. There is no fresh, manly life in his stories; anything of the kind is sourly frowned down. Rollo, while strolling along, picturesquely, perhaps, but stupidly, sees A Noisy Boy, and is warned by his insufferable father to keep out of that boy's way. That Noisy Boy infallibly turns out vicious. Is that sound doctrine? Will that teach a child to admire courage and activity? If he is ever able to appreciate the swing and vigor of Macaulay's Lays, it will not be because you trained him on such lyrics as
"In the winter, when 'tis mild,
We may run, but not be wild;
But in summer, we must walk,
And improve our time by talk" (!)
but because that Noisy Boy found him out,—and, quarrelling with him, (your boy, marvellous to relate! having provoked the quarrel by some mean trick, in spite of his seraphic training,) gave him a black eye,—and afterwards, turning out to be the best-hearted Noisy Boy in the world, taught him to climb trees and hunt for birds' nests,—and stopped him when he was going to kill the little birds, (for your pattern boy—poor child! how could he help it?—was as cruel as he was timid,)—and imparted to him the sublime mysteries of base-ball and tag and hockey,—and taught him to swim and row, and to fight bigger boys and leave smaller boys in peace, instructions which he was at first inclined to reverse,—and put him in the way to be an honest, fearless man, when he was in danger of becoming a white-faced and white-livered spooney. And that Noisy Boy himself, perversely declining to verify Mr. Abbott's decorous prophecies, has not turned out badly, after all, but has Reverend before his name and reverence in his heart, and has his theology sound because his lungs are so. No doubt, Tom Jones often turns out badly, but Master Blifil always does,—a fact which Mr. Abbott would do well to note and perpend.
What! Because Rollo is virtuous, shall there be no more mud-cakes and ale? Marry, but there shall! Don't keep a boy out of his share of free movement and free air, and don't keep a girl out. Poor little child! she will be dieted soon enough on "stewed prunes." Children need air and water,—milk and water won't do. They are longing for our common mother earth, in the dear, familiar form of dirt; and it is no matter how much dirt they get on them, if they only have water enough to wash it off. The more they are allowed to eat literal dirt now, the less metaphorical dirt will they eat a few years hence. The great Free-Soil principle is good for their hearts, if not for their clothes; and which is it more important to have clean? Just make up your mind to let the clothes go; and if you can't afford to have your children soil and tear their laced pantalets and plumed hats and open-work stockings, why, take off all those devices of the enemy, and substitute stout cloth and stout boots. What have they to do with open-work stockings?
"Doff them for shame,
And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs."
Believe now, instead of learning by sad experience, that tin trumpets and torn clothes do not necessarily signify depravity, and that quiet children are not always free from deceit, cruelty, and meanness. The quiet, ideal child, of whom Mr. Abbott thinks so highly, generally proves, in real life, neither more nor less than a prig. He is more likely to die than live; and if he lives, you may wish he had died.