as gone to his
repose, and much of his philosophizing and moralizing is buried deeper
than his dust; yet Peter himself lives, and will live, in the graphic
histories, anecdotes, sketches of life and Nature, and the rich
treasures of pictorial illustration, that have blessed the eyes and
ears, the hearts and imaginations of our children. He was wisest when he
least thought of being wise, and weakest when he tried to be strong. We
are not likely to repeat his mistakes, and our best new juvenile
literature is too loyal to the old standards and to common-sense to
undertake to make a precocious reasoning monster of the dear little
child whom God is asking us to help onward in the unfolding of his
senses and the observation of the world and its scenes and people.

We must be willing to own that our America is a child of the ages, and
to give our children a full share of their birthright as heirs of the
juvenile treasures of all nations. Judaea must still give her sacred
stories, that charm youth as much, as they edify maturity; Arabia loses
nothing of the enchantment of her marvellous tales in the clear light of
this nineteenth century, but makes her dreams dearer, as science and
business insist that we shall not dream at all; the old classic times
shall still teach us in the fables of AEsop, and the romantic ages shall
be with us in the legends of fairies and elves, dwarfs and giants,
saints and angels, that are constantly coming up with faces new or old;
the Protestant Reformation shall speak to our little folks in the lives
of the martyrs and in "Pilgrim's Progress"; the age of modern adventure
shall never tire in "Robinson Crusoe"; the new secular era of ethical
schooling shall not lose its power so long as Maria Edgeworth finds a
printer; nor will the didactic school of writers of juvenile religious
books die out so long as Hannah More stands by our Sunday schools and
Tract Societies, and keeps their piety and ethics from swamping
themselves wholly in dogmatism and dulness.

Yet whilst we are thus to acknowledge and use the old treasures, we are
none the less bound to have a juvenile literature of our own; and
because we are possessed by the truly catholic spirit that appreciates
all good things, we are more likely to have a full and fair growth from
the good seed that takes root in our own nurseries. What that new growth
shall be we do not presume to predict, for it cannot be fully known
until it comes up and speaks fo