The day is dull and dreary,And chilly winds and eerieAre sweeping through the tall oak trees that fringe the orchard lane.They send the dead leaves flying,And with a mournful cryingThey dash the western window-panes with slanting lines of rain.My little ’Trude and Teddy,Come quickly and make ready,Take down from off the highest shelf the book you think so grand.We’ll travel off together,To lands of... more...

GENERAL INTRODUCTION Books are as essentially a part of the home where boys and girls are growing into manhood and womanhood as any other part of the furnishings. Parents have no more right to starve a child’s mind than they have his body. If a child is to take his place among the men and women of his time he needs to know the past out of which the present grew, and he needs to know what is going on... more...

CHILDREN'S BOOKS AND THEIR ILLUSTRATORS. BY GLEESON WHITE.There are some themes that by their very wealth of suggestion appal the most ready writer. The emotions which they arouse, the mass of pleasant anecdote they recall, the ghosts of far-off delights they summon, are either too obvious to be worth the trouble of description or too evanescent to be expressed in dull prose. Swift, we are told... more...

CHILDREN AND THEIR BOOKS The most vital educational problem will always be how to make the best use of the child's earlier years, not only for the reason that in them many receive their entire school training, but also because, while the power of the child to learn increases with age, his susceptibility to formative influences diminishes, and so rapid is the working of this law that President... more...

RHYMES OF THE NURSERY. Writing on the subject of nursery rhymes more than half a century ago, the late Dr. Robert Chambers expressed regret because, as he said, "Nothing had of late been revolutionised so much as the nursery." But harking back on the period of his own childhood, he was able to say, with a feeling of satisfaction, that the young mind was then "cradled amidst the simplicities... more...

CHAPTER I—ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS If you look at a Map of the World, you will see, in the left-hand upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two Islands lying in the sea.  They are England and Scotland, and Ireland.  England and Scotland form the greater part of these Islands.  Ireland is the next in size.  The little neighbouring islands, which are so small upon the Map as to be mere dots,... more...

AN EVENING IN VENICE It was a glorious summer evening. The moon, rising over the city of Venice, shone down on towers and domes and marble palaces, and made a golden path in the rippling waters of the lagoon. The squares of the city were all ablaze with lights, while from every window and balcony twinkling jets of flame found their reflection in the canals, and lengthened into shimmering arrows of... more...

LITTLE SARAH HOWLEY. MISS SARAH HOWLEY, when she was between eight and nine years old, was carried by her friends to hear a sermon, where the minister preached upon Matt. xi, 30, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light;" in the applying of which scripture the child was mightily awakened, and made deeply sensible of the condition of her soul, and her need of Christ: she wept bitterly to think... more...

1. There was an Old Man with a beard,Who said, "It is just as I feared!—Two Owls and a Hen,Four Larks and a Wren,Have all built their nests in my beard!" There was a Young Lady of Ryde,Whose shoe-strings were seldom untied;She purchased some clogs,And some small spotty dogs,And frequently walked about Ryde. 3. There was an Old Man with a nose,Who said, "If you choose to suppose,That my... more...

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Hermia and Lysander were lovers; but Hermia's father wished her to marry another man, named Demetrius. Now, in Athens, where they lived, there was a wicked law, by which any girl who refused to marry according to her father's wishes, might be put to death. Hermia's father was so angry with her for refusing to do as he wished, that he actually brought her... more...