t popular nursery rhymes; and Mother
Goose, good old soul, who has sung many of those strange old verses to
children for a thousand years, if the antiquaries are not mistaken,
proves to us that the way to please little ears and eyes is by
presenting a variety of images in the easiest succession, without any
attempt at intellectual method or logical unity. Her style is that of
the kaleidoscope, and she turns words and pictures over as rapidly, and
with as little method, as that instrument shows in its handling of
colors. As the child's development advances, the varieties need more of
the unities, and the favorite sports rise into more method and sequence,
nearer the rule of actual life: marbles give way to cricket, and
blindman's bluff yields to chess. For a long time, however, anything
like severe intellectual unity of plan is irksome, and even the toys
that require careful thought and embody extraordinary workmanship are
less agreeable than the rude playthings that can be knocked about at
will, and made to take any shape or use that the changing mood or fancy
may decree. The rag baby is more popular with the little girl than the
mechanical doll; and a tin pot, with a stick to drum upon it, pleases
little master more than the elegant music-box. As long as the child's
mind is in a chaos of unsorted sensations and impulses, he does not like
plays that are so utterly in advance of his position as to present a
perfect order that calls up Kosmos within him before its time. There is
a good Providence in this necessity, and Nature is servant of God in her
attempt to touch and voice the separate keys of the great organ, before
she tunes them together to the great harmonies and symphonies that are
to be performed. She is busy with each key first by itself; and there is
something winning, as well as healthful, in that intensity which
attaches to the sensations and impulses of children in this their first
education. They are finding themselves and the universe at once; and the
marvellous zest with which they see and feel and hear and handle
whatever comes within their reach is a kind of rapturous wedding of the
senses to the world of Nature and life, and a prelude to that more
interior and spiritual union that is to be.

Our best books for children must not forget this great fact, and they
must present great variety of impression and images in such sequence and
unity as the young reader's mind can easily appreciate and enjoy. The