up in juvenile form are totally unsuited to juvenile readers. I am inclined to believe that at least forty-five per cent. of Andrew Lang's compilations are of value to the antiquarian alone; in fact, that they contain matter of an anthropomorphic character that young people should not be given. Far better would it be for them to become thoroughly familiar with Æsop, Anderson, Grimm, Asbjornson, and Greek mythology-more necessary to their culture than East Indian Brahminism or than South African Zuluism. I have watched the effect of story-tellers on their audiences. There was an Australian folk-tale told one day that bored to extinction; this was followed by the Uncle Remus story of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and the Tar Baby; the mirth was spontaneous.

I also believe that it is unfortunate to find so many pseudo-fairy tales. Most of our writers are trying to emulate Lewis Carroll, even as the versifiers are attempting to imitate Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses." The author of "Alice in Wonderland" put three elements into that nonsense story: fact, nonsense, and fairy tale. So did Charles Kingsley in "The Water Babies." Carroll possessed an innate feeling for the incongruous which none of his followers have. Yet the time was never so ripe for some one with the ability and with the understanding, to convert the spirit of machinery, of modern science, into fairy form. Kipling came near it in "Puck of Pook's Hill."

There is but one great fear I have for the fate of the present-day children's literature. The general law of the survival of the fittest will take care of the books of real value, a few of which appear each year. Thankful indeed we should be that our own time has brought us "Uncle Remus," "Peter Pan," and the "Jungle Book." The publishers to a commendable degree reprint-in editions worthy of the highest praise-books which constitute the child's rich heritage. But the author of juvenile literature is writing with no other authority than that which a democratic average demands. In fiction he is a journalist, and since he finds the "series" profitable, he is willing to give his style a sameness that depends on action for external move

ment.

In "non-fiction" he has educational theories which bind him and scholarly exactions which direct him. In both instances he is a producer rather than a creator.

Of

And he is not a creator simply because in modern education they are doing their best to stunt the imagination of the child. the mass of literature being published for children, a careful survey makes me fear that very little is being prompted by the sheer love of writing for children. If books are to survive the democratic demand, the author must cultivate his spontaneous love for the craft. This love is what gave Mrs. Burnett in "Little Lord Fauntleroy" and Mrs. Wiggin in "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" their authority.

The Range of Choice

Having made these observations, therefore, I repeat that it is surprising how good the literature for children really is, considering the range of tastes to be satisfied and the numbness of the average child to style. Beautiful editions pour yearly from the presses. All that a buyer has to do is to start out shopping with a judicious list of children's books, and such a list may be had from almost any public library of standing. I was surprised not long ago to find how ignorant kindergartners were on the subject of illustrations for children. Picture-books are difficult to find, and the majority of mothers who frequent the department stores turn to the newspapersupplement type as the kind that Johnny wants. And in all probability it is. But there are not many teachers who have ever had the curiosity to ask to see the reprints of Kate Greenaway (Warne); to examine the freedom of Walter Crane's work (Warne); nor do they even know the name of Caldecott (Warne), that master of simple line and simple idea. They would smile in ignorance if asked who Boutet de Monvel (Century) was, and even such a modern person as Lucy Fitch Perkins (McClurg and Houghton, Mifflin) would go unsought.

Lucky the buyer who has the opportunity of purchasing a new edition of Kipling's "Jungle Book" (Century), of the "Arabian Nights" (Holt), of Anatole France's "Girls and Boys" (Duffield), of the "Story of Rostand's Chanticler" (Stokes), of Arthur Rackham's "Mother Goose" (Century), of Asbjornsen's "Norwegian Tales" (Lippincott), of E. Boyd Smith's edition of "Ivanhoe" (Houghton, Mifflin), of Madame Maeterlinck's "The Children's Blue Bird" (Dodd, Mead), of "Snow White," the play, as given at the Little Theatre in New York

As a reviewer, I know from the publishers' announcements sent me that there will be slight variation from the books of last year. First and foremost, there are the "series" to be continued. From the standpoint of timeliness, I know that I shall be sent several volumes dealing with incident in the Balkans; there will be the usual historical display of Revolutionary, 1812, and Civil War stories. Especially strong will be the last, in view of the war anniversaries we have recently celebrated. I will find scanty biography, for biography is written. only for school requirements. In a letter from a librarian, I find this memorandum regarding biography: "I am of the opinion that the biographical form belongs to people of developed taste, and not to people whose taste is in the making. By that I mean that I doubt if we shall ever be able to develop in children the love for biography in itself, and I think the biographical form. often hinders, rather than increases, a child's interest in an individual.

I

Interest estab

lished is the slo

gan, and it is a wise publisher who places an exciting frontispiece to his story-books. I repeat this wherever I

have an opportunity, for it should stand as a warning to the average grown person who purchases books for children. A book should be examined before it is bought; it should not be purchased on the strength of its cover design. One is safe, pretty generally, as far as

is concerned. Now and again a snobbish tone is to be guarded against, but in the matter of content-if not of form, of style -the buyer might purchase blindly. The public library guards the public as far as it can; it aims to place the best upon its shelves. But the child will read something inferior until he begins to want something better. When he realizes that X's tale is not so absorbing as Stevenson's "Treasure Island," the battle is won. Style will not have won it, but the large feeling for events and character and right doing at the right moment.

The time has arrived when the many theorists regarding children's literature should meet and measure up their investigations. The librarians have done splendid service in systematizing the field according to the wants of childhood. Their book lists should be of inestimable service to parents, to anyone interested in the subject. Books have been graded, they have been indexed under various headings, their best editions indicated. The mother who does not know Douglas Jerrold's "Big Book of Nursery Rhymes' " (Dutton) or his "Big Book of Fables" (Caldwell) had better make their acquaintance. And there is much

she does not know that could be had for the asking. It will save no end of fruitless searching at the book-stalls, and of unwise purchase. For it is surprising how unwise a parent is in purchasing books for her children. Yet she cannot go far wrong, for she has two things to guide her: she knows what Johnny wants, and she can usually rely on the imprint of a good publisher. The truth is that parents heretofore have been indifferent to the matter. They have left to the state what they should have taken unto themselves.

M

R. NESTOR HURD, the "feature" editor of the New York Searchlight, was in a bad humor. We all knew he was, and everybody knew why, except Mr. Nestor Hurd himself. He thought it was because he had not a competent writer on his whole dash-blinged staff, and he was explaining this to space in words that stung like particularly active gnats. Really it was because his wife had just called at his office and drawn his month's salary in advance to go to Atlantic City.

Over the little partition that separated his private office from the square pen where his reporters had their desks Mr. Hurd's words flew and lit upon us. Occasionally we heard the murmur of Mr. Morris's voice, patting the air like a soothing hand; and at last our chief got tired and stopped, and an office boy came into the outer room and said he wanted to see me.

I went in with steady knees. I was not afraid of Mr. Hurd any more. I had been on the Searchlight a whole week, and I had written one big "story" and three small ones, and they had all been printed. I knew my style was improving every daygrowing more mature. I had dropped a great many amateur expressions, and I had learned to stop when I reached the end of my story, instead of going right on. Besides, I was no longer the "cub" reporter. A new one had been taken on that morning -a scared-looking girl who told me in a trembling voice that she had to write a special column every day for women. It was plain that she had not studied life as we girls had in the convent. She made me feel a

thousand years old, instead of only eighteen. I had received so much advice during the week that some of it was spilling over, and I freely and gladly gave the surplus to her. I had a desk, too, by this time, in a corner near a window where I could look out on City Hall Park and see the newsboys stealing baths in the fountain. And I was going to be a nun in three years, so who cared, anyway? I went to Mr. Hurd with my head high and the light of confidence in my eyes.

"Sthat?" remarked Mr. Hurd, when he heard my soft footfalls approaching his desk. He was too busy to look up and see. He was bending over a great heap of newspaper clippings, and the veins bulged out on his brow from the violence of his mental efforts. Mr. Morris, the thin young editor who had a desk near his, told him it was Miss Iverson. Mr. Morris had a large bulge on each jaw-bone, which Mr. Gibson had told me was caused by the strain of keeping back the things he wanted to say to Mr. Hurd. Mr. Hurd twisted the right corner of his mouth at me, which was his way of showing that he knew that the person he was talking to stood at his right side.

"'S Iverson," he began (he hadn't time to say Miss Iverson), "got 'ny money?"

He interrupted me rudely. "Don't want to know how much papa gave you." he snapped. "Want to know where tis."

I told him coldly that it was in a savings bark, for papa thought

He interrupted again. I had never been interrupted when I was in the convent. There the other girls hung on my words with suspended breath.

Sail right, then," Mr. Hurd said. "Here's your story. Go and see half a dozen of our biggest millionaires in Wall Street-Drake, Carter, Hayden-you know the list. Tell 'em you're a stranger in town. come to study music or painting. Got a little money to see you through-nough for a year. Ask 'em what to do with ithow to invest it-and write what happens. Good story, eh?" He turned to Morris for approval, and all his dimples showed. making him look like a six-months-old baby. He immediately regretted this moment of weakness and frowned at me.

***Sa!!," he said, and I went away.

I

I will now pause for a moment to describe an interesting phenomenon that ran through my whole journalistic career. I always went into an editor's room to take an assignment with perfect confidence, and I usually came out of it in black despair. The confidence was caused by the memory that I had got my past stories; the despair was caused by the conviction that I couldn't possibly get the present one. Each assignment Mr. Hurd had given me during the week seemed not only harder than the last, but less worthy the dignity of a general's daughter. Besides, a new and terrible thing was happening to me. I was becoming afraid-not of work, but of men. I never had been afraid of anything before. From the time we were laid in our cradles, my father taught my brother Jack and me not to be afraid. The worst of my fear now was that I didn't know exactly why I felt it, and there was no one I could go to and ask about it. All the men I met seemed to be divided into two classes. In the first class were those who were not kind at all—men like Mr. Hurd, who treated me as if I were a machine, and ignored me altogether or looked over my head or past the side of my face when they spoke to me. They seemed rude at first, and I did not like them; but I liked them better and better as time went on.

In the second class were the men who were too kind-who sprawled over my desk and

wasted my time and grinned at me and said things I didn't understand and wanted to take me to Coney Island. Most of them were merely silly, but two or three of them were horrible. When they came near me they made me feel queer and sick. After they had left I wanted to throw open all the doors and windows and air the room. There was one I used to dream of when I was overworked, which was usually. He was always a snake in the dream-a fat, disgusting, lazy snake, slowly squirming over the ground near me, with his buiging green eyes on my face. There were times when I was afraid to go to sleep for fear of dreaming of that snake; and when, during the day, he came into the room and over to my desk, I would hardly have been surprised to see him crawl instead of walk. Indeed, his walk was a kind of crawl.

Mr. Gibson, Hurd's star reporter, whose desk was next to mine, spoke to me about him one day, and his grin was not as wide as usual.

"Is Yawkins annoying you?" he asked. "I've seen you actually shudder when he came to your desk. If the cad had any sense, he'd see it, too. Has he said anything? Done anything?"

I said he hadn't, exactly, but that I felt a strange feeling of horror every time he came near me; and Gibson raised his eyebrows and said he guessed he knew why, and that he would attend to it. He must have attended to it, for Yawkins stopped coming to my desk, and after a few months he was discharged for letting himself be "thrown down" on a big story, and I never saw him again. But at the time Mr. Hurd gave me his Wall Street assignment I was beginning to be horribly afraid to approach strangers, which is no way for a reporter to feel; and when I had to meet strange men I always found myself wondering whether they would be like Hurd or like Yawkins. I hardly dared to hope they would be like Mr. Gibson, who was like the men at home— kind and casual and friendly; but of course some of them were.

Once Mrs. Hoppen, a woman reporter on the Searchlight, came and spoke to me about them. She was forty and slender and black-eyed, and her work was as clever as any man's, but it seemed to have made her very hard. She didn't believe in anybody. She made me feel as if she had dived so deep in life that she had come out into a place where there wasn't anything.