THE CHILD IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

LITERATURE

In the great mass of critical comment on eighteenth century literature, in the many studies that have been made of the first, misty, half-wistful out-reachings of Romanticism, there has been a curious neglect of a most interesting phase of this many-sided movement that of the growing consideration of children and childish interests. It is a development, indeed, which should appeal with especial force to this, our latter-day world. To-day our markets are flooded with books for children and about children; the bookdealer fails or succeeds according to his ability to satisfy the demands of the little folk; the aspiring author turns to a ten-year-old public alike for inspiration and patronage; the current magazines sell in proportion to the number of child stories they can boast. Yet no one has paused to trace this current of widespread interest back to its source, which is, quite naturally and properly, to be found in this same romantic movement which had its slender beginnings well back in the eighteenth century.

Previous to the seventeenth century there seems to have been little or no recognition of childhood's legitimate literary demands. As all literary growth is sequential, it will perhaps be of service to take a rapid survey of conditions leading up to the era of general awakening in the eighteenth century.

In the days of bookish scarcity, when materials were dear, and production laborious, it is natural that no books should have been produced for mere pleasure's sake, and that all which were thus painfully given to the children should have served as manuals of instruction, both intellectual and moral. The books of the time, then, fall easily into two classes: (1) books of good counsel; and (2) classical grammars. The former we find, as we might expect, stern and unsympathetic, all written from the lamentably grown-up standpoint expressed in Henry Scogan's lines:

That tyme loste in youthhed jolity,
Greveth a wight bodily and ghostly.

From "The Babees Booke," the reprinting of which is far from being the least of Dr. Furnival's many valuable contributions to literary study, we quote the following "good counsel" for the guidance and edification of the hapless children of long ago:

For as the wise man sayeth and proveth,

A lere child, lore he behoveth;

And as men say that be ler(n)ed,

He hateth the child that spareth the yerde;
And as the wise man saith in his book
Of proverbs and wisdoms,-who will look,-
As a sharp spur maketh a horse to run
Under a man that should war win,
Right so a yerde may make a child

To learn his lessons and to be mild.

The same book, however, proves that even in those dark days there was an occasional gleam of humorous and appreciative understanding. A schoolboy has played truant — as what healthy schoolboy of any date would not, under the above quoted provocation? has been caught, and in consequence flogged. Therefore, he gives voice, through the medium of a really delightful poem, to many a disrespectful and relentless wish, the final one being altogether too choice to escape frequent quotation, representing as it does, the universal emotions of the universal schoolboy:

I wolde my master were an hare
And all his bookes houndes were,
And I myselfe a Joly hontere;
To blow my horn I wolde not spare,
For if he were dead I wolde not care
What Vayleth me, though I say nay?

About this time, however, as if to show a more cheerful obverse to the period, we find an attempt to alleviate youthful miseries by the introduction of jingling rhymes to facilitate memorization of that eternal bubgear, the Latin grammar. Very likely the rhymes added grateful relish to the dry task. We may be sure, however, that they added nothing to the student's poetical appreciation.

In the Elizabethan Era we find a single writer, who seems to have written with the distinct purpose of reaching childish un

derstanding. It was Edward Coote, who, though from the modern standpoint, most unpedagogical in method, was still a writer of considerable boyish appeal, as the following lines bear wit

ness:

My child and scholar, take goode heede
Unto the words that here are set,

And see thou do accordingly

Or else be sure thou shall be beat!

As for the rest, in the abundant poetic outpouring of Shakespeare's time, we find no trace of the real boy or girl. There was, it is true, an occasional baby song of rare beauty, such as gentle, melancholy Nicholas Breton gives us in his much disputed "Lullaby," or such as Greene writes under the title of "Sephestia's Song to Her Child;" but we at once recognize these poems merely as convenient vehicles for expressing adult emotions and in no sense inspired by or written for His Majesty the Baby. In the lovable, vital childishness of the period, the child himself had no place. The sixteenth century world was made for lords and ladies, Corydons and Phillydas, Dicks and Joans; but not for rollicking youngsters with their large demands and generous bestowals of hearty life and love. Whenever a feeble attempt was made to picture childhood, the weazened, drawfed little men and women who resulted were indeed pathetic, even when they grew under the master pen of our master Shakespeare, in whose mryiad minds there seems to have been no spymathetic comprehension of childhood.

Not only was there no literature in which children figured, but there was none for them. Instead of the psychologic public of to-day which so vigilantly studies childish tastes, and so thoughtfully sugar-coats each bit of knowledge recalcitrant youth must swallow, there was a care-free, conscienceless world of grown-ups, who said to their children, "Don't read, but if read you must, here are a Latin grammar and a Greek lexicon." And with them the sturdy schoolboy had to be content, after he had passed the preliminary coaching of the dame school and the horn book, both of which, we dare to conjecture, were vastly less interesting to him than they are to the student of to-day.

The seventeenth century was as barren in its child literature

as it was in all other respects, and accountably so. It was the era of the Puritan, in whose gloomy conception every irresponsible babe born into the world was inevitably damned and was to be saved from a perpetuation of this mournful fate only by a life of the most rigorous self-abasement and self-denial. One of the best exponents of the age is James Janeway, of unhappy memory, author of "A Looking Glass for Children," and "Tokens for Children," this latter further announcing itself as "An exact account of the conversion, holy and exemplary lives, and joyful deaths of several young children." Attractive enough, is it not? And further investigation convinces us that any of its youthful readers must have preferred eternal gloom to instant salvation of the pale and sickly order portrayed. Yet it was a case of "Take this book or go without." Poor, poor children! The saddest part of the story is that they, too, grew up in the same humorless mould, and for two generations afflicted their children, even as they themselevs had been afflicted.

It was this century which produced the ascetic allegory of that Christian visionary, John Bunyan. Not that he wrote for children, but children then and thereafter claimed as their own, a book which attracted them partly through its allegorical medium, and partly through its vivid concrete delineation. One book of verse Bunyan did write, avowedly for young folks, giving it the alarming title of "Divine Emblems, or Temporal Things Spiritualized for the Use of Boys and Girls." In its ludicrous ignorance of the form and content of poetry in which field, to do him justice, Bunyan makes no claim to proficiency - it affords the only gleam of fun and humor which makes its way through the Puritanic gloom of the century, whose attitude towards its children is well indicated by the title Nolens Volens, which Elisha Coles (1640-1680) gives to his Latin Grammar.

With such antecedents, then, the eventful eighteenth century was ushered in, bringing with it, for the first time, a very acceptable glimpse of a sturdy childhood, which sprang up perforce to counteract with its healthy vigor the immorality and artificiality of its contemporary adult period, and to bring sweet, untainted freshness to the early dawn of a new era. Literary activity in behalf of the children was still in control of those who

felt the responsibility of their moral welfare, and we are no whit surprised to find in the lead of the van that most pleasing divine, the brightest "among numerous stars which have adorned the hemipshere of the Christian Church," the very reverend Dr. Watts. Having passed through a most exemplary childhood himself, demanding books before he could talk plainly, studying Latin at the age of four, and shortly thereafter writing Latin pindarics to his teacher, who, pray, had a better right to preach to children? Preach he did, and very acceptably, it would seem. In 1706 he published his Hora Lyrica, which is known to-day chiefly as the volume which contains the famous warning to the young, "Remember Your Creator." The poem is full of the forceful morality which is aptly expressed by the definitely marked rhythm of this writer of hymns. The first venture was a good one. Idolized by all non-conformists, and urged on by his own restless conscience, he produced his emotional hymns and remarkable Hebrew paraphrases, all in preparation of the first book really to be devoted to children. In 1719, finally, were written the "Divine and Moral Songs for Children." By them, Dr. Watts has been and will be remembered. The book is prefaced by some remarkably unique and impersonal remarks about his own poetry. For instance, he writes: "There is delight in the very learning of truth and duties in this way. There is something so amusing and entertaining in rhymes and meter that will incline children to make this part of their business a diversion. And you may turn their very duty into a reward [so unwise was the learned gentleman in his methods!] by giving them the privilege of learning one of these songs a week if they fulfill the business of the week well, and promising them the book itself, when they have learned ten or twenty songs of it."

However far the good doctor may be from the ideals of the children of to-day, he was the first consciously to seek their level in his own time. "And as I have endeavored," he continues, "to sink the language to the level of a child's understanding, and yet to keep it, if possible, above contempt, so I have designed to profit all, if possible, and offend none." That he deemed himself successful in this laudable undertaking is