The beginnings. During the eighteenth century the peoples of Europe and America turned their attention in a remarkable way to a consideration of the worth and rights of the individual. In America this so-called democratic movement culminated in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The most dramatic manifestation of the movement in Europe was the French Revolution of 1789, but every country of Europe was thrilled and changed by the new thought. Every important democratic movement leads to an awakened interest in the welfare of children, for they are among the weak and helpless. This great movement of the eighteenth century brought such a remarkable change of thought regarding children as to mark the beginning of a new kind of literature, known as literature for children.
Today we think of Andersen, Stevenson, Mrs. Ewing, and scores of others as writers of literature for children. Such writers did not exist before the democratic movement of the eighteenth century. It is true that a few short books and articles had been written for children as early as the fifteenth century, but they were written to teach children to be obedient and respectful to parents and masters or to instruct them in the customs of the church—they were not written primarily to entertain children and give them pleasure. Within the last century and a half, too, many authors have collected and retold for children innumerable traditional stories from all parts of the earth—traditional fairy stories, romantic stories of the Middle Ages, legends, and myths.
The child's inheritance. As has been indicated, children's literature is of two kinds: first, the traditional kind that grew up among the folk of long ago in the forms of rhyme, myth, fairy tale, fable, legend, and romantic hero story; and, second, the kind that has been produced in modern times by individual authors. The first, the traditional kind, was produced by early civilization and by the childlike peasantry of long ago. The best of the stories produced by the childhood of the race have been bequeathed to the children of today, and to deprive children of the pleasure they would get from this inheritance of folklore seems as unjust as to deprive them of traditional games, which also help to make the first years of a person's life, the period of childhood, the period of imaginative play. The second kind of children's literature, that produced in modern times by individual authors, has likewise been bequeathed to children. Some of it is so new that its worth has not been determined, but some of it has passed the test of the classics. The best of both kinds is as priceless as is the classical literature for adults. The world would not sell Shakespeare; yet one may well doubt that Shakespeare is worth as much to humanity as is Mother Goose. To evaluate truly the worth of such classics is impossible; but we may be assured[8] that the child who has learned to appreciate the pleasures and the beauties of Mother Goose is the one most likely to appreciate the pleasures and the beauties of Shakespeare when the proper time comes.
The true purpose of education is to bring the child into his inheritance. For many years educators have talked about the use of literature in the grades as one means of accomplishing this purpose. The results of attempts to teach literature in the grades have sometimes been disappointing because often the literature used has not been for the grades; that is, it has not been children's literature. In other cases the attempts have failed because the literature has not been presented as literature—it has, for example, been presented as reading lessons or composition assignments. Students preparing to teach in the grades have been studying textbooks from which literature for children has been excluded, regardless of its artistic worth. Consequently many teachers have not been prepared to teach literature in the grades. Often they have assumed that the reading lesson would develop in the pupil an appreciation of good literature, not realizing that the reading lesson may cause pupils to dislike literature, especially poetry, unless it is supplemented by appropriate work in children's literature. If the student reads thoughtfully the literary selections in the following sections of this book, he probably will realize that children's literature is also literature for adults, and that it is not only the child's inheritance, but also the inheritance of humanity.
The fact that literature for children is likely to have a strong interest for adults is strikingly suggested in a few sentences in John Macy's A Child's Guide to Reading:
When "juveniles" are really good, parents read them after children have gone to bed. I do not know whether Tom Brown at Rugby is catalogued by the careful librarian as a book for boys, but I am sure it is a book for men. I dare say that a good many pairs of eyes that have passed over the pages of Mr. John T. Trowbridge and Elijah Kellogg and Louisa M. Alcott have been old enough to wear spectacles. And if Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin ever thought that in Timothy's Quest and Rebecca she was writing books especially for the young, adult readers have long since claimed her for their own. I have enjoyed Mr. A. S. Pier's tales of the boys at St. Timothy's, though he planned them for younger readers. We are told on good authority that St. Nicholas and The Youth's Companion appear in households where there are no children, and they give a considerable portion of their space to serial stories written for young people. Between good "juveniles" and good books for grown persons there is not much essential difference.