Chapter I: The English Side

Whatever change in children’s literature was now to take place was due entirely to the increasing importance of elementary education. A long while was to elapse before the author was wholly freed from the idea that situations could be dealt with, apart from any overbearing _morale_, and even then he found himself constrained to meet the problem of giving information--of teaching instead of preaching.

The interest in external nature, the desire to explain phenomena according to the dictates of belief, infused a new element into authorship for young people. But those writers brought to meet this latent stirring of the scientific spirit all the harness of the old régime. First they thought that they could explain the evident by parables, but they found that fact was too particular for generalisations, and the child mind too immature for such symbol. Then they attempted to define natural objects from a childish plane, making silly statements take the place of truth. They soon became aware that their simple style had to deal with a set of details that could not be sentimentalised.

The truth of the matter is that a new impulse was started; the national spirit began to move toward a more democratic goal; the rank and file began to look beyond the narrow hill and dale; women sought wider spheres; the poor demanded constitutional rights; energy began to stir from underneath. The word _modern_ was in every one’s mind. The old order changeth, giving place to new. The child’s intellect must be furnished with food for its growth; Rousseau’s doctrine of “back to nature” was found not to have worked; it was realised that special training must begin early for all the walks of life. Carlyle was pleading for a _public_ library, education was widening its sphere.

In the preceding pages, we have tried to establish a continuous line of development in children’s books through several centuries; upon such a foundation the English story and the American story of to-day are based. The table of English writers on page 147 contains names of minor importance, but still forming a part of the past history--foreshadowers of the new era. For therein you will discover that juvenile literature first begins to show signs of differing from adult literature only in its power; that where Macaulay tells the story of England in terms of maturity, Miss Strickland, Lady Callcott, Miss Tytler, and Miss Yonge adopt a descending scale. Where children were wont to act in accord with the catechism, they are now made to feel an interest in their surroundings. Mrs. Marcet writes for them “talks” on chemistry and political economy, Mrs. Wakefield on botany and insects. The extension of schools meant that literature must be supplied those schools; writers were encouraged in the same way that Miss More was prompted to produce her “Repository Tracts.” Grammars and histories began to flood the market, and in the wake of Scott’s novels, taking into consideration the fact that books were being written for the purpose of information, the child’s historical story was a natural consequence. Thus we discover the connection between “Waverley” and Henty. The death-blow to fairy tales in England, brought about by the didactic writers, resulted in a deplorable lack of imaginative literature for children, until a German influence, around 1840–1850, began to take effect, and the Grimms’ Household Tales afforded a new impulse.[41] Mrs. Gatty, author of the famous “Parables of Nature,” deigned to rejoice over the classic nonsense of Lewis Carroll. The line of descent can be drawn from Perrault to Grimm, from Grimm to Andrew Lang’s rainbow series of folk-lore.

The table is intended to do no more than indicate the gradual manner in which this break took effect. The student who would treat the evolution fully will find it necessary to place side by side with his discussion of individual books for young people, a full explanation of those social changes in English history which are the chief causes of the changes in English literature. Children’s books are subject to just those modifications which take place in the beliefs, the knowledge, and the aspirations of the adult person. The difference between the two is one of intensity and not of kind. The student will discover, after a study of the development of the common school, how and why the educational impulse dominated over all elements of pure imagination; how the retelling craze, given a large literary sanction by such a writer as Lamb, and so excellently upheld by Charles Kingsley, lost caste when brought within compass of the text-book. He will finally see how this educational pest has overrun America to a far greater extent than England, to the detriment of much that is worthy and of much which should by rights be made to constitute a children’s reading heritage.

ENGLISH TABLE

MRS. PRISCILLA WAKEFIELD. 1751–1832. Member of Society of Friends;
philanthropic work among the poor. Author: Juvenile Anecdotes;
Juvenile Travellers; Conversations; Introduction to Botany;
Introduction to Insects; Present Condition of Female Sex, with
Suggestions for Its Improvement; Life of William Penn. Reference:
D. N. B.[42]

FRANCES BURNEY (MADAME D’ARBLAY). 1752–1840. Reference: D. N. B.

WILLIAM FORDYCE MAVOR. 1758–1837. Ed. 1799, juvenile periodical for
Walker, Newbery. Reference: D. N. B.

JOANNA BAILLIE. 1762–1851. Work among the poor made her known as Lady
Bountiful. Reference: D. N. B.

JEREMIAH JOYCE. 1763–1816. Author: Lectures on the Microscope.

MRS. JANE MARCET. 1769–1858. Macaulay wrote: “Every girl who has
read Mrs. Marcet’s little dialogues on political economy could
teach Montague or Walpole many fine lessons in finance.” Author:
Scientific text-books; Conversations on Chemistry intended for the
Female Sex; Conversations on Political Economy, imitated by Harriet
Martineau in her Illustrations of Political Economy. Reference: D.
N. B.

MRS. BARBARA HOFLAND. 1770–1844. Imitated the Edgeworth style. Author:
Emily; The Son of a Genius; Tales of a Manor; Young Crusoe.
Reference: D. N. B.

MRS. MARY MARTHA SHERWOOD. 1775–1851. Stories and tracts evangelical
in tone. With her sister, Mrs. Cameron, invented a type of story
for rich and for poor. Author: The Fairchild Family (intended for
the middle classes); Little Henry and His Bearer. Reference: _New
Review_ (May 18, 1843); Life of Mrs. Sherwood by her daughter; D.
N. B. An edition of The Fairchild Family, New York, Stokes, $1.50.

JANE PORTER. 1776–1850. Reference: D. N. B.

MARIA HACK. 1778–1844. Quaker parentage. A believer in the “walk”
species of literature. Author: Winter Evenings, or Tales of
Travellers; First Lessons in English Grammar; Harry Beaufoy, or the
Pupil of Nature. Reference: D. N. B.

MRS. ELIZABETH PENROSE. 1780–1837. Pseud. Mrs. Markham. Daughter of
a rector. One critic wrote: “Mrs. Penrose adapted her history to
what she considered the needs of the young, and omitted scenes of
cruelty and fraud, as hurtful to children, and party politics after
the Revolution as too complicated for them to learn.” Author: Began
school histories in 1823; these were brought up to date afterward
by Mary Howitt. Moral Tales and Sermons for Children. Reference: D.
N. B.

JOHN WILSON CROKER. 1780–1857. One of the founders of the _Quarterly
Review_; reviewed abusively Keats’s Endymion. Author: Stories from
the History of England, 1817, which supplied Scott with the idea
for his Tales of a Grandfather; Irish Tales. Reference: Jenning’s
Diaries and Correspondence of Croker (London, 1884); Internat.
Encyclo.

LADY MARIA CALLCOTT. 1785–1842. Author: Little Arthur’s History of
England. Reference: D. N. B.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD. 1787–1855. Careful detail of description, akin
to Dutch style of painting. Author: Tragedies; Village Stories;
Juvenile Spectator. She was among the first women to adopt writing
as a profession. Miss Yonge speaks of her “writing so deliciously
of children,” but she “could not write for them.” Reference: D. N.
B.; Recollections; Letters.

AGNES STRICKLAND. 1796–1874. “With the exception of Jane Porter, whom
she visited at Bristol, and with whom she carried on a frequent
correspondence, and a casual meeting with Macaulay, whom she found
congenial, she came little in contact with the authors of the day.”
Author: Lives of the Queens of England; Two Rival Crusoes. [Note
the hybrid type of story that sprung up around the real Robinson
Crusoe.] Edited Fisher’s Juvenile Scrap Book, 1837–1839. Reference:
D. N. B.

MRS. MAY SEWELL. 1797–1884. Left Society of Friends for the Church
of England. Wrote homely ballads. _Vide_ daughter, Anna Sewell.
Author: Her ballad, Mother’s Last Words, circulated about 1,088,000
copies when it first appeared. Reference: Mod. Biog.

MARY HOWITT. 1799–1888. Authorship linked with that of her husband. In
1837 began writing children’s stories and poems. Her daughter, Anna
Mary, also was a writer of children’s books. Author: Translator of
Fredrika Bremer’s novels; editor, Fisher’s Drawingroom Scrap Book.
Reference: Reminiscences of My Later Life (_Good Words_, 1886); D.
N. B.

CATHERINE SINCLAIR. 1800–1864. Fourth daughter of Sir John Sinclair.
Her work considered the beginning of the modern spirit. A friend
of Scott. Author: Holiday House; Modern Accomplishment; Modern
Society; Modern Flirtations. Reference: A Brief Tribute to C. S.
(Pamphlet); D. N. B.

G. P. R. JAMES. 1801–1860. Influenced by Scott and encouraged by
Irving. Thackeray parodied him in Barbazure, by G. P. R. Jeames,
Esq., in Novels by Eminent Hands; also in Book of Snobs (chaps. ii
and xvi). Author of a long list of novels.

HARRIET MARTINEAU. 1802–1876. Reference: D. N. B.

MRS. MARGARET SCOTT GATTY. 1809–1873. She was forty-two before she
began to publish. _Vide_ Ewing. Author: Aunt Judy Tales; Parables
of Nature; 1866--_Aunt Judy Magazine_ (monthly), continued after
her death, with her daughter as editor; stopped in 1885. Reference:
Life in ed. Parables (Everyman’s Library); _Illustrated London
News_, Oct. 18, 1873; _Athenæum_, Oct. 11, 1873, p. 464; D. N. B.

ANNA SEWELL. 1820–1878. Author: Black Beauty (1877). Reference: D. N. B.

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. 1823-. Author: Heir of Redclyffe; The Kings of
England; The Chaplet of Pearls.

MRS. MARY LOUISA WHATELEY. 1824–1889. Went to Cairo and lived from
1861–1889, where she had a Moslem school. Wrote chiefly about
Egypt. Fairy tale influence. Author: Reverses; or, the Fairfax
Family. Reference: Hays’ Women of To-day; London _Times_ (March 12,
1889).

MRS. DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK. 1826–1887. Pseudo-fairy tale writer.
Author: Adventures of a Brownie, etc.

JULIANA HORATIO EWING. 1841–1885. Reference: J. H. Ewing and Her Books,
by Horatia K. T. Gatty; D. N. B.

ANN FRASER TYTLER. Daughter of Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord
Woodhouselel. Author: Leila on the Island; Leila in England; Leila
at Home.