INTRODUCTION

BY LYMAN ABBOTT

ALL good men love children, but my father not only loved, he respected them. This respect which he had for children was, I think, the secret of his power over them, which was quite as remarkable as his literary success in writing for them. In a true sense it might be said that he treated children as his equals, not through any device or from any scheme, but spontaneously and naturally.

He never deceived children, never tricked them with cunning devices, never lied to them. This may seem small praise, yet men — and for that matter women — who never lie to children are, I am afraid, a rather small minority. A promise to a child was quite as sacred in his eyes as a promise to a grown person. He would as soon have thought of defaulting on a promissory note as defaulting on a promise to a child. He trusted the judgment of children, took counsel with them, not in a false pretense but in reality, and in all the matters which concerned them and their world was largely governed by their judgments. He threw responsibility upon them, great responsibility, and they knew it. The audacity of his confidence surprises me even now as I look back upon it. I entered college before I was fourteen. My father not only let me choose the college for myself, but made me decide for myself whether I would go to college. When the time for entrance examination approached, he called me to him, told me that if I went into business as an errand boy he would lay up for me every year what the college life would cost him, so-that at eighteen I should have a capital of two thousand dollars and interest. Thus I not only had to decide that I would go to college, but also had to decide that I was willing to give up two thousand dollars for a college education, and two thousand dollars was a large sum to my boyish mind. But, as a result, I took college life with great seriousness, quite resolved to get the two thousand dollars' value out of the education. This act was quite characteristic of my father. Though he was my wisest counselor, I cannot remember that he ever gave me a definite and specific piece of advice; he put questions before me with great clearness, summed up the pros and cons like a judge upon the bench, and then left me to be the final arbiter.

This respect which he showed to children inspired them with respect for themselves and for one another. It gave dignity to the children who came under his influence. That influence was a masterful one. I should misrepresent him if I gave the impression that he exercised no authority. On the contrary, his authority was supreme and final; he gave few commands, but he required prompt, implicit, and unquestioning obedience to those which he did give. I have known children to disobey him, but I never knew one to rebel against him. I do not know what would have happened in case of a rebellion. I think no child ever thought of it as possible. I never knew him to strike a blow. I do not recall that he ever sent a child to his room, or supperless to bed, or set him to write in his copy book, or to learn tasks, or resorted to any other of the similar expedients, necessary perhaps in school, and frequent in most families. In general he simply administered natural penalties. If a child lied or broke his promises, he was distrusted. If he was careless or negligent, the things which were given to other children to play with were withheld from him. If he quarreled, he was taken away from his playmates, but made as happy as he could be made in solitude. The children were themselves encouraged to inflict a kind of child penalty. In the yard at Fewacres, his country home, which was a favorite playground for invited children from the village, as well as for his own grandchildren, he had a square stone set up. Then he said, "If any child gets cross and sulky and cries, he can go and sit on the 'crying stone' just as long as he wants to and cry it out." Whenever any child did grow sulky and cross, all the rest of the children clamored, "To the crying stone, to the crying stone," and it is needless to say that it was rarely the case that a child took advantage of the prerogative thus afforded him. This little incident I recall simply because it is significant of my father's methods with children. He distinguished sharply, and the children quickly learned to distinguish between advice and law.

When he gave advice the child was perfectly at liberty to regard it or disregard it as he pleased, and after disregarding it fell into no disrepute or disfavor of any kind. But law, when it was issued, which was not often, must be at once obeyed without hesitation, and without question. He approved and encouraged independence and self-confidence in children but he required prompt and unhesitating obedience.

This spirit of respect which my father had for children interprets his literary method. He never condescended to children, never talked down to them or wrote down to them. He believed they could understand large truths if they were simply and clearly stated. So in "Science for the Young" he dealt with some of the most interesting scientific phenomena; in his Red Histories he used biography to make clear the great historical epochs; in his "Young Christian" he interpreted the profound phases of spiritual experience. This spirit of confidence determined his style. He never sought for short and easy words, but selected what he thought the best word to express his meaning. The child, he said, will get the meaning of the word from the context, or if he does not, he will ask his mother what the word means, and so he will be learning language. He did not write books about children for grown people to read. He wrote books for children because he shared their life with them. Perhaps it is a son's prejudice, but his books still seem to me to be among the best of true children's books.

A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE

Jacob Abbott's ancestors were hardy, honest country folk who came from England to Massachusetts in early colonial days. His father married while a resident of Concord, New Hampshire, in 1798, and two years later moved to Hallowell, Maine, a town of some commercial importance on the Kennebec River. There Jacob, their eldest son, was born in 1803.

At the age of seventeen Jacob was graduated from Bowdoin College. Soon afterwards he accepted a position as teacher in the Portland Academy, where he had for one of his pupils the poet Longfellow, then a boy of thirteen. In intervals between teaching, he studied theology at Andover Seminary, and in 1824 he became a tutor at Amherst College.

He moved to Boston in 1829 to establish a school for young ladies. Meanwhile, he had married. About this time his first book was published. Other books followed, and he also wrote much for periodicals.

After a few years he gave up teaching, and presently he moved to Farmington, seventy miles north of Portland, where he built a simple one-story cottage.

The road that passed his home led up a hill northerly to a plateau where stood the village, with its several churches and flourishing academy, overlooking one of the most fertile and tranquil river valleys in New England. Mr. Abbott sometimes occupied village pulpit, or was called to officiate at a funeral, or to drive a few miles out into the back districts to address a Sunday school.

The cottage was on a four-acre tract of unimproved land diversified by bold slopes and wooded ravines, and traversed by a sluggish brook. A sandhill, perhaps fifty feet high, thrust out from the plateau on to his property, and this he trimmed with a scraper into graceful proportions, sodded, and planted with trees. Mount Blue towered on the northern horizon twenty miles away, so he called the transformed sand knob "Little Blue."

At one place he broadened and deepened the brook into a pond, which afforded his boys a fine opportunity for the sports of summer and winter. He built bridges, made paths, and put up wooden benches for seats, and the place became known throughout the country by the name of its chief attraction "Little Blue."

Mr. Abbott's wife died in 1843. He then went to New York where for the next few years he gave much time to teaching, but by 1850 writing had again become his main occupation.

Between 1843 and 1870, eight visits to Europe furnished inspiration for numerous travel volumes, mostly for young readers. During this period he produced fully three-fourths' of the one hundred and eighty books of which he was the author. These included works that dealt with education, science, and history, but stories for children predominated. He was able to write anywhere and everywhere. Whether he was in the waiting room of a railway station, or in the seclusion of his study, and whether the time was morning or late in the evening, mattered little. He was constantly studying human life, especially child life, and often what he relates in his stories is a faithful record of real happenings.

As Mr. Abbott grew older he was attracted more and more to the cottage at Farmington. The little tract on which it stood commanded delightful views of river and meadows, and afforded an agreeable opportunity for the gentle physical labor of making outdoor improvements, which was always Jacob Abbott's favorite recreation. At length he made "Fewacres," as he called it, his permanent abode. He enjoyed the quiet beauty of the spot, the simple manners of the community, and the independence of the retired life he led.

Here his closing years glided away. His only writings now were frequent letters to his children and grandchildren and occasional answers to correspondents, with now and then an article for a periodical. The summers were enlivened by the visits of one or more of his sons, and the grandchildren filled the house with their welcome noise. To the enjoyment of the little people he ministered untiringly, and he devised many odd and entertaining methods for their mental and moral improvement.

Toward the very end of Mr. Abbott's life the only exercise he was able to take consisted of gentle saunterings, cane in hand, about his home grounds. His favorite resource indoors was to have his books read aloud to him, as he sat in an easy chair where he could look through a window and watch the passers-by. He had forgotten even the names of many of his books, but in listening to their contents the past was revived in a way that gave him great pleasure. The end came in the autumn of 1879, and in so far as this saved him from being "doomed to a helpless old age" it accorded with his desire.

Jacob Abbott's father had five sons, all of whom became ministers and teachers, and, with one exception, authors. It is equally worthy of note that all of Jacob Abbott's four sons developed into men of unusual ability and usefulness.

Through his writings Jacob Abbott's influence was very great and very sound, not only with youth and thoughtful adults, in America, but to a large extent abroad. It is characteristic of his juvenile fiction, which was so fascinating to the younger people in the middle of the last century, that it contains much general information and teaches many wholesome lessons in right thinking and right acting.

The present book is an excellent example of his work at its best. For the most part the movement of the story is quiet, but the incidents are varied, and there are some episodes which are distinctly exciting, while always there is the charm of a sincere and lucid telling that makes the events described seem very real. The leading characters are so likable, too, that the reader unconsciously feels he is in good company, and the inclination is cultivated to imitate these attractive young people in the book.

Most of the adventures are from a volume in the "Franconia Series" entitled "Beechnut," but some portions of the other books have been included to make the story complete. The editing consists chiefly in selecting what was essential, and in omitting unnecessary details and the moralizing to which writers for children of that period were prone.

CLIFTON JOHNSON.

Hadley, Mass.