Forgotten Books of the American Nursery | Page 4

included eight ministers, the governor and magistrates of the county, and two nurses who bore the little body to the grave, into which, half full of water from the raging storm, the rude coffin was lowered. Death was kept before the eyes of every member of the colony; even two-year-old babies learned such mournful verse as this:
"I, in the Burying Place may See Graves Shorter than I; From Death's Arrest no age is free Young Children too may die; My God, may such an awful Sight Awakening be to me! Oh! that by Grace I might For Death prepared be."
When the younger members of the family are otherwise mentioned in the Judge's diary, it is perhaps to note the parents' pride in the eighteen-months-old infant's knowledge of the catechism, an acquirement rewarded by the gift of a red apple, but which suggests the reason for many funerals. Or, again, difficulties with the alphabet are sorrowfully put down; and also deliquencies at the age of four in attending family prayer, with a full account of punishments meted out to the culprit. Such details are, indeed, but natural, for under the stern conditions imposed by Cotton and the Mathers, religion looms large in the foreground of any sketch of family life handed down from the first century of the Massachusetts colony. Perhaps the very earliest picture in which a colonial child with a book occupies the centre of the canvas is that given in a letter of Samuel Sewall's. In sixteen hundred and seventy-one he wrote with pride to a friend of "little Betty, who though Reading passing well, took Three Moneths to Read the first Volume of the Book of Martyrs" as she sat by the fire-light at night after her daily task of spinning was done. Foxe's "Martyrs" seems gruesome reading for a little girl at bedtime, but it was so popular in England that, with the Bible and Catechism, it was included in the library of all households that could afford it.
Just ten years later, in sixteen hundred and eighty-one, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" was printed in Boston by Samuel Green, and, being easily obtainable, superseded in a measure the "Book of Martyrs" as a household treasure. Bunyan's dream, according to Macaulay, was the daily conversation of thousands, and was received in New England with far greater eagerness than in the author's own country. The children undoubtedly listened to the talk of their elders and gazed with wide-open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and sword of the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough of Despond, or with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable reading; while Mr. Great Heart's courageous cheerfulness brought practically a new characteristic into Puritan literature.
To Bunyan the children in both old and New England were indebted for another book, entitled "A Book for Boys and Girls: or, Country Rhimes for Children. By J.B. Licensed and Entered according to Order."[11-A] Printed in London, it probably soon made its way to this country, where Bunyan was already so well known. "This little octavo volume," writes Mrs. Field in "The Child and his Book," "was considered a perfect child's book, but was in fact only the literary milk of the unfortunate babes of the period." In the light of modern views upon juvenile reading and entertainment, the Puritan ideal of mental pabulum for little ones is worth recording in an extract from the preface. The following lines set forth this author's three-fold purpose:
"To show them how each Fingle-fangle, On which they doting are, their souls entangle, As with a Web, a Trap, a Gin, or Snare. While by their Play-things, I would them entice, To mount their Thoughts from what are childish Toys To Heaven for that's prepar'd for Girls and Boys. Nor do I so confine myself to these As to shun graver things, I seek to please, Those more compos'd with better things than Toys: Tho thus I would be catching Girls and Boys."
In the seventy-four Meditations composing this curious medley--"tho but in Homely Rhimes"--upon subjects familiar to any little girl or boy, none leaves the moral to the imagination. Nevertheless, it could well have been a relaxation, after the daily drill in "A B abs" and catechism, to turn the leaves and to spell out this:
UPON THE FROG
The Frog by nature is both damp and cold, Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold, She sits somewhat ascending, loves to be Croaking in gardens tho' unpleasantly.
Comparison
The hypocrite is like unto this frog; As like as is the Puppy to the Dog. He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide To prate, and at true Goodness to deride.
Doubtless, too, many little Puritans quite envied the child in "The Boy and the Watchmaker," a jingle