Wordsworth himself could not have demanded a more careful attention to the simplicity of word selection than that paid by Dr. Isaac Watts (1674–1748), who, though not first in the field of hymn-writers, for his immediate predecessor was Bishop Thomas Ken[37] (1637–1711), author of “Morning and Daily Hymns,” was nevertheless one of the very first consciously to pen a book of verse for a juvenile public. Not only was he actively engaged in the interests of education, but, during his famous thirty-six years’ spent as visitor in the household of Sir Thomas Abney, of Newington, he crystallised his ideas on education, and incorporated them in his “The Improvement of the Mind: To which is added A Discourse on the Education of Children and Youth.” This treatise may be regarded as a fair example of the pre-Rousseau style of pedagogy. The child was measured in terms of sectarian standards, it being assumed that the first step was to impress him with the truth that his very nature was sinful, and that it could be shrived only by having the mind centred always upon holy thoughts. The religion of the closet must be held above every pleasure. Yet Dr. Watts notices that such pleasures are increasing to an alarming state; that children are rebelling against Puritan principles. His sternness relents, in so far as he would allow children to play draughts and chess, and to amuse themselves with games which might instruct them in the rudiments of grammar and geometry. Though there are not many who would discountenance his diatribe against the gaming table, the dangers besetting midnight revellers, and the freedom which results in immorality, one cannot but view with distrust the strictures which would turn girls into dowdy creatures and boys into prigs. The theoretical predecessors of Rousseau’s Émile were the two creations of Dr. Watts,--Eugenio and Phronissa--his ideal children, combining those qualities which rob youth of all charm. Theirs must have been wearisome lives. The boy, we are told, “is an entertaining companion to the gay young gentlemen, his equals; and yet divines and philosophers take pleasure to have Eugenio amongst them.” Dr. Watts never deigned to tell us what requirements Eugenio set for the staid divines, or whether he tried to get away from them. And Phronissa: she stands before us now, in attitude betokening detestation of the stage, and we hear her proclaiming the song and the dance as her meanest pleasures--talents not to be proud of!