Part 13

Now, the lovers of Oliver Optic and Mrs. Finley do not take kindly to the classics and as, in the modern stories for young people, few will pass muster as literature, all that the librarian of to-day can do is to use her judgment and discrimination among those the writers have provided. The boys are readily turned from Oliver Optic to Henty, Tomlinson, Jules Verne, and on to "Ivanhoe," but with the girls the case is hard. The girl tells us that she likes stories about boarding-school. It is a capital subject: in the hands of a writer sympathetic with girls, of fertile imagination and vigorous power of characterization, boarding-school life affords material for most entertaining combinations--but the literature of the boarding-school has yet to be written. The average boarding-school story has three main characters--the attractive, impulsive heroine, always getting into trouble; the cruel, cold-blooded, unscrupulous rival, habitually dealing in falsehood, and the teacher who is singularly devoid of discernment or intuition. The heroine inevitably falls into the snare of the rival, and things are usually set right all around by a death-bed scene--although actual death is sometimes averted. "Louie's last term at St. Mary's" is one of the better stories of this kind, and Mrs. Spofford's "Hester Stanley at St. Mark's" is fairly well written, with a touch of the charm of the author's personality. "Chums," by Maria Louise Pool, is one of the worst of its kind, where envy, hatred, and malice run riot through the pages and the actors in the story are wholly lacking in vitality. The experiences of Miss Phelps's "Gypsy Breynton" and Susan Coolidge's "Katy" are as satisfactory pictures of boarding school life as we have; and Helen Dawes Brown's "Two college girls" is a good story. "Brenda, her school and her club," by Helen L. Reed, is a recent valuable addition to books for girls.

In stories of home life Miss Alcott still easily takes the lead, with Susan Coolidge and Sophie May following in merit and popularity. The boys have an excellent story of home life in Rossiter Johnson's "Phaeton Rogers." The setting is perfectly simple, every day surroundings, but the characters have the abounding vitality that keeps things moving. The entertaining succession of events proceeds directly and naturally from the ingenuity and healthy activity of the young people grouped together. The book is a model in this respect as well as in the use of colloquial English which never loses a certain refinement. Every boy, while reading "Phaeton Rogers," finds himself in touch with good companions--and this is true as well, in Charles Talbot's books for boys and girls.

The most important books for boys are the historical stories, appealing at once to the hero worship and the love of adventure common to boyhood; at the same time they should give a good general idea of history. The story in historical setting is, also, most desirable for girls--in that it balances the too subjective tendency; it carries the mind of the reader beyond the emotional condition of the heroine--indeed the heroine has no time to study her own emotions when brought into vital relation with stirring events. Apart from the value of the historical facts imparted is the indirect but more valuable habit of mind cultivated in the girl reader. Vivid, stirring, absorbing stories for girls can be and should be written in this field, which is practically unlimited. Miss Yonge has done some good service here. "The prince and the pauper" and the "Last days of Pompeii" are also illustrations of the kind of work that should be done--they are both strong in the direct interrelation between the imaginary characters and real history--and both appeal alike to the boy and the girl.

Books written with a direct moral purpose seldom achieve popularity with boys--and yet one of the most popular of all their books is "Captains courageous," which is of the highest moral value though without one line of religious preaching in its pages. Here the boys are in touch with a real, living character, acted upon and developed, through the moulding pressure of life itself--from first to last the aim of the story is the boy; and yet the moral outcome is simple, natural, inevitable and manly; it appeals to the common sense which is strong in boys.

Now when a woman writes for girls on the subject of the transformation of a frivolous butterfly into a girl of sense, instead of giving us character and action with a moral outcome, we have a religious setting with the action of the story and the conduct of the characters bent in every direction to illustrate the motive of the story--the religious idea.

The plastic nature of the young girl wrought upon by life, fresh faculties brought into activity by the hard knocks of fate or the sunbursts of good luck--although these things are happening every day in the real life of young girls, we yet await the writer who will put them into literature without sentimentalizing. What we want is the novel simplified; the story told directly, without byways of description or analysis; where healthy young people, neither saints nor prigs, nor creatures of affectation, jealousy, or malice, are acted upon by life and each other in a natural fashion.

Let boys and girls be brought together as in real life; brothers are a good element in girls' stories, and love affairs need not be excluded, if handled with delicacy, common sense and true feeling. Many books classed as novels are merely stories simply and clearly told, intended for older readers, but far better for young girls than the stories usually written for them. Miss Jeanie Gould Lincoln's stories and Mrs. J. G. Austin's historical novels, some of Mrs. Barr's and Mrs. Oliphant's novels and a wide range of other interesting, well-told stories can be substituted, if care and discrimination are used in the selection. Fortunately, too, many girls of twelve are ready for Dickens and other standard writers.

However it is not only through the emotions that these aspirations and desires are ministered to--when the writer can develop this emotion into spiritual enthusiasm--or when she portrays a character of active spiritual force, she has put something valuable into the life of the reader. Here, as always, it is the personality of the writer--the soul back of the words that most counts, and it is just this quality of true spirituality which gives value to Mrs. Whitney's stories, in spite of their wordiness, lack of proportion and forced symbolism; as it is the genuine goodness and pure idealism of Miss Mulock which forms the very atmosphere in which her characters move.

While it is impossible to offer a practical guide to the selection of books a few suggestions can be made. In the religious stories, for instance, there must be discrimination between those encouraging morbid self-examination or religious sentimentalizing, and those cultivating optimism and the perception of true values and ideals.

In books of adventure the dividing line would fall between, on the one side, those stories where the hero is actuated by pure love of adventure or where the adventure is worth while in itself--as in "Foul play"; and, on the other side, those stories where the hero is merely seeking to exploit himself and in which the tendency might be to incite boys to reckless escapades for the sake of notoriety.

In the _purchase_ of books one must consider the range of the average reader, but in _recommending_ books to the individual boy and girl, appreciation of differences in temperament and culture is indispensable.

WINIFRED L. TAYLOR, _Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn, N. Y._

_II. FAIRY TALES._

Fairy tales must appeal to the love of the marvellous, and must yet be told with a simplicity that precludes all doubt of their reality in the mind of the child, no matter how improbable the circumstances to our prosaic minds. The language must be simple and dignified. To write a fairy tale, one must first of all be a poet, at least must have the poetic instinct. The child very early absorbs the idea of rhyme. He is sung to sleep with cradle songs, and soothed by jingles, and he does not soon outgrow their influence.

These tales from the librarian's standpoint, fall naturally into two classes: the folklore legends adapted for children (in which, regardless of classification, we include mythological tales) and the purely literary, imaginative story.

_Fairy tales derived from folk-lore._

Fairy tales derived from folk-lore--stories drifted down from the childhood of the world, were not originally written for children, and perhaps for this very reason, they have claimed them for their own. They are not "the artless appeals to all little masters and misses who are good or intend to be good" of John Newbery's time. They have a naturalness which these first books printed especially for children lack; the moral is not too strongly urged. Different versions of the old, old tales reflect in a measure the manners and customs of the country in which they are collected. Fairies are stolid or clever, mischievous or amiable, according to the characters of the people to whom the stories were told.

To this class belong the Grimm brothers' "Household tales," "Icelandic tales," edited by Mrs. A. W. Hall (tales in which it is the princess or the peasant maiden who rescues the prince, instead of being rescued); the Norwegian tales of Asbjörnsen and Moë, the Grimm brothers of the far North. The collections of Lang, Baring-Gould; and Cruikshank, because of illustrations; Miss Mulock's "Book of fairies" and William Canton's "True annals of fairyland" should be in all libraries.

Collections of tales derived from Greek and Roman mythology, such as Kingsley's "Heroes," Hawthorne's "Wonder book" and "Tanglewood tales," may also be considered as fairy tales derived from folk-lore.

One of the most exquisitely told of the old Greek fairy tales is that of "Eros and Psyche," adapted by Paul Carus from Apuleius. The story appeals to children, regardless of the religious significance indicated in the preface of the book.

"Fairy tales from far Japan," translated by Susan Ballard, is excellent, particularly the story of the "Magic mirror," which is also found in a charming set of booklets published in Tokio, in English. This set is called the "Japanese fairy tale series," the type, paper and colored illustrations being all of Japanese manufacture.

"Fairy stories from the little mountain," by John Finnemore, is a good collection of Welsh stories as is Frere's "Old Deccan days" of Indian folk-lore.

"Wigwam stories," edited by Mary Catherine Judd, are told by Indians, or adapted from ethnological reports and original sources.

Mabie's "Norse stories retold from the Eddas," Keary's "Heroes of Asgard," "The wonder-world stories" of Marie Pabke and Margery Deane, Scudder's "Book of folk tales" and Wiltse's "Folk-lore and proverb stories," both of the latter for the youngest readers, the Countess d'Aulnoy's fairy tales, the collections of Laboulaye and the immortal tales of Perrault, we cannot afford to be without, as well as Howard Pyle's "Wonder clock" and "Pepper and salt," which retain the old-time flavor and are much enhanced by the author's illustrations.

_Literary fairy tales._

Hans Christian Andersen's stories, while based often upon tradition, are excluded by Hartland from the list of pure fairy tales and classed as literary. Yet even the old, old fairy tales cannot, with justice, rival his in the hearts of the children. Their feeling for him has been expressed by John White Chadwick, in writing of another:

"But as I muse, I seem at heaven's door To hear a sound which there I heard before. When Danish Hans that way did softly wend-- A sound of children making merriest din Of welcome, as the old man entered in."

Mary S. Claude, in "Twilight thoughts," has shown herself a graceful follower in the footsteps of Andersen. Such stories create a tenderness for plants and animals not easily effaced.

It detracts nothing from the interest of the story that what a child calls a fairy tale we call literature. Even Dr. Johnson recognized that "babies do not want to hear about babies." It is a great pity that a child should never meet the knights of the Round Table, or the Charlemagne legends--half history, half romance--or the Homeric tales, outside the dissecting room of a literature class. Small wonder that a child who heard them there for the first time should exclaim with considerable animus, "I like to read, but I hate literature."

Here is a good field for the "story hour" so successfully introduced in the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh. That edition which follows most closely the original, or is told in graphic clear-cut English, such as Morris uses in the "Earthly paradise" or the "Life and death of Jason," or Butcher and Lang's translation of the Odyssey, is the best. Such a version read aloud is infinitely better than the best dilution by any well-meaning attendant. Skip judiciously, but do not weaken the story. It is not only the plot but the charm of style which we wish to introduce. The argument may of course first be given, that the child be put in sympathy with the situation.

_Modern fairy tales._

A good modern fairy tale is a rare article. One may search far and long before finding it. If it is not worth reading twice, it is not worth reading once. In many of these modern tales there is an atmosphere of haste wholly lacking in the good old tales. Fairyland has a government of its own, where neither time nor space has value. It lies "east of the sun and west of the moon."

One of the best collections is "Granny's wonderful chair," by Frances Browne--in the American edition "The wonderful chair." It is well written, the interest is well kept up, and the language is befitting the subject. The surest way to test a poor fairy tale is to first read one of unquestionable merit, and to get thoroughly into its atmosphere.

_Good modern fairy tales._

"Princess Ilse," by Marie Petersen; a gracefully told story of a discontented mountain brook.

"Mopsa the fairy," by Jean Ingelow, and "The little lame prince," by Dinah Maria Craik.

"Lob-lie-by-the-fire," by Mrs. Ewing, and "At the back of the North wind" and "The Princess and Curdie," by George Macdonald.

The average modern fairy tale is a jumble of impossibilities, with no continuity of incident, well enough or poorly written, according to the ability of the writer.

"The magic fruit garden," by Marion Wallace Dunlop, is an illustration of this kind. Two very small children, in abbreviated pinafores, are studying their Monday lessons; one is writing an essay on Perseverance, the other is copying geographical names. By the illustrations, one may judge the children to be of kindergarten age. It is not surprising that they fall asleep, and, to dreamland sent, meet with adventures enough to make the strongest head whirl--a case of literary delirium tremens.

"Snow garden," by Elizabeth Wordsworth, is on the whole a good collection; the stories, however, are of unequal merit.

"The other side of the sun," by Evelyn Sharp, is of negative goodness. The witches and wizards are mild and amiable, especial care evidently being taken that no child should be kept awake at night. It does no harm for children occasionally to shiver and shake as poor Hans in the Grimm collection longed to do. The author's satisfaction at the expression the "wymps wimpled" is insisted upon a little too frequently.

"Fairy folk of Blue Hill," by Lily F. Wesselhoeft, is of especial interest to children about Boston, since it accounts for the granite quarries and pudding stone of the region. It is smoothly written and is not spoiled by slang or pertness.

"Summer legends," by Rudolph Baumbach. The stories are not altogether fairy tales nor are they written for the youngest readers. They are gracefully written although they lose somewhat by translation. The book is in some parts amusing and all the stories are peopled with the wonderful creatures of fairyland.

Other tales seem invented only for the purpose of forcing religious sentiment, or pointing a moral in inverse proportion to the size of the reader. Their authors seem sometimes to have reached Mark Twain's conclusion that "every one being born with an equal amount of original sin, the pressure on the square inch must needs be greater in a baby."

"Pixie and Elaine stories," by Carrie E. Morrison, is a mixture of fairy tale and religious story. The author speaks in her preface of the stories having been carefully pruned. One shudders at thinking what they must have been before, with such chapters as "The Elaines' picture of heaven," and "The pixie transforms an Elaine" left in.

"New book of the fairies," by Beatrice Harraden, is marred by the suggestion of cruelty to animals. In one story, in place of rubbing the Aladdin lamp, that what one wishes may happen, one must pull the black cat's tail. It is gratifying to reflect that black cats have their own peculiar method of retaliation for such experiments.

_Burlesque fairy tales._

Burlesque fairy tales are the most atrocious of all. They are apt to be broad in their humor, full of _fin de siècle_ jokes or puns, and modern allusions which mar the poetry of the tale if there is any in it, and create an appetite for facetiousness in books. "Lips wagging, and never a wise word," one is tempted to say with Ben Jonson.... Copyright fees should be trebled on this class of books.

Under this head come:

"The book of dragons," by E. Nesbit.

"Here they are!" by James F. Sullivan; full of modern allusions and puns.

"The pink hen," by Cuthbert Sterling; a sort of "continuous performance." The pink hen is hatched from a forgotten Easter egg, is driven from the barnyard by her associates and forced to seek her fortune. She links her fate with that of a little girl who has escaped from an ogre, and together they redeem a prince from the curses of bad fairies. The pink hen is continually punning, and the prince while still in the cradle is addicted to smoking.

It is hard to tell how the author of Jewett's "More bunny stories" would classify them. We hope not as fairy tales. They are poor from any point of view. The bunnies might as well be ordinary children as anything. They go to lawn parties, play golf, dance the Virginia reel, go to West Point, tell folk-lore stories, repeat Bible verses and say their prayers. We are sometimes asked for a Sunday book. For one who must have a special book for that day, this might possibly answer; it is certainly full of moral reflections and pious sentiment; but there is no reason at all for reading it on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. The story closes with a wedding where the happy bunnies are united under a bridal bell, while the strains of the march from "Lohengrin" float in the air.

Humor is not early developed in all children, which is perhaps why a great many do not care for "Alice in Wonderland," and for Stockton's fairy tales--"The bee man of Orn," "The griffin and the minor canon," etc.

Laura E. Richards' "Chop-chin and the golden dragon" must also be classed as humorous. It is not as good as the Toto stories.

_Animal folk-lore._

Animal folk tales as exemplified in Joel Chandler Harris's stories, "Little Mr. Thimble-finger," "Mr. Rabbit at home," "Daddy Jake," "Uncle Remus," "Story of Aaron," etc., are excellent. Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit, the black stallion and all the animal characters are quite as much realities to the children as Buster John, Sweetest Susan and the Little Master.

Ortoli's "Evening tales," follows the same general line.

Kipling, too, in the "Jungle books" has won the hearts of the children, and here there is no hint of the "garlic flavor," mentioned by Higginson.

Fraser's "Mooswa" also belongs to this class.

A common practice in modern fairy stories is for the author to open the tale in this way: A child falls asleep and enters fairyland via the dream country. Often the child has been sent to bed for some misdemeanor, as in the "Dream fox story book," by Mabel Osgood Wright, or has fallen asleep over his tasks, as in the case of the "One-eyed griffin," by Herbert E. Inman, the fairy tales being offered by way of consolation; a reprehensible practice in itself, besides putting one out of touch with the real fairyland. It is too conspicuously "make believe" and leads one to suspect that the author has little confidence in his own production. As "good wine needs no bush," so a good fairy tale needs no introduction or apology. In the real fairyland one cannot easily be ungraceful.

_Nature fairy tales._

Nature fairy tales are more than apt to be failures, and often include a great deal of pertness and cheap talk, in their effort to teach by stealth. (Charles Lamb writes to Coleridge in regard to Goody Two Shoes in this way: "Think what you would have been now, if, instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables, you had been crammed with geography and natural history.")

A conspicuous example of the faults of this class of story is found in "Sylvia in flowerland," by Linda Gardner. The heroine is introduced as a high-school girl, well-advanced in Latin and mathematics, and amply able to supplement very largely the information which the flowers give her about themselves. Linda strolls into the fields and is told all sorts of facts about the habits of plants by the flowers. The story where the author forgets to interject puns is interestingly told, certainly enough so to attract a girl of fourteen, who has any fondness for flowers. Besides the numerous puns, such glaring sentences as the following, condemn it. "I don't know who you mean." "Why it is a nasty nettle"! said Sylvia. "Nasty, yourself," ejaculated the nettle sharply, "why do you come shoving against me?"

McCook's "Old farm fairies," gives what Mrs. Malaprop calls "a supercilious knowledge" in its attempt to interest children in insect life, by introducing different insects in the form of pixies, brownies and fairies. While it has not the faults of "Sylvia in flowerland," the information is mainly crowded into footnotes and appendices, which as a rule are carefully avoided by children.

Mabel Osgood Wright's "Tommy Anne" and "Wabeno" are more successful; but the same amount of energy spent in making the facts of nature interesting in themselves would be preferable.

While not assuming an absolute censorship in this department, the principle of natural selection may be applied in discarding such books as are characterized by the faults here cited, that we may do our share towards discouraging a taste for facetiousness, flippancy and poor style in literature. For while these modern, sham, soulless fairy tales soon lose themselves in the overwhelming mass of printed matter, in their brief existence they have time to accomplish considerable harm. Far better to encourage re-reading the imperishable tales, than to gratify an insatiable desire for more. Did not we ourselves again and again shed fresh tears over Cinderella's hard fate, or gasp with bated breath while watching with Sister Ann for that distant speck on the horizon? If children are different to-day, it is partly because we are helping to make them so.

ABBY L. SARGENT, _Medford_ (_Mass._) _Public Library_.

_III. SCIENCE FOR CHILDREN._

In the selection of books for children's libraries it is necessary to understand the difference between the aims and methods of the old education and the new.