Two points are worthy of note in Dr. Watts’s book. Despite his many limitations which argued for piousness and for the composure of the youthful spirit; despite his disapproval of all exercise which might turn one’s thoughts away from the prescribed paths, he was nevertheless a pleader in the cause of advance. For what he lays down as educational theory he would have parents hearken to; in his eyes the bringing up of youth is a sacred duty, involving obligations of a delicate nature. He would emphasise the responsibility of the Home; he would have parents eager to see the moral laws obeyed by their children. He would have education applied equally as well to girls as to boys; in fact, so Dr. Watts confesses, in tones as though he were making a great concession, the habit of reading is quite as important to the former as to the latter. Dark as the days may seem in the lives of those children educated according to theories and tracts, the lighter recreations must have brightened moments unrecorded. Even John Locke (1632–1704), in his “Thoughts on Education” (1693), recommends besides the Psalter and the New Testament, Æsop and Reynard the Fox, as good food for infant minds. This was an excellent basis to start upon. The two small volumes of “Divine Songs, Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children” [editions, New York: Mahlon Day; Cambridge: 1803] which I have examined, bear upon the fly-leaves tales recorded in uncertain handwriting. The one has, “To ----, a present from his Mamma”; the other, “---- his Book: If this should be lost and you should _fine_, Return to me, for it is _mine_.” “You will find here nothing that savours of party,” says the poet in his foreword. “... As I have endeavoured to sink the language to the level of a child’s understanding, and yet to keep it, if possible, above contempt, so I have designed to profit all, if possible, and to offend none.” Yet the usual theological doctrines reek from every page; there is much of the tenor of the “New England Primer” in the verses. The wonder is that with all their atmosphere of brimstone and sulphur, with all their effort to present _to_ the child grown-up beliefs in simple doses, the poems still retain a spontaneity, a sweet, quaint simplicity that strike the sympathy, if they do not entirely appeal to the fancy. “His dreadful Majesty” is more suited to Milton than to a song; “How doth the little busy bee,” though not yet in accord with the lyrist’s pure, unfeigned delight in nature, is overtopping in childish appeal, “The eternal God will not disdain, To hear an infant cry.” We pit an understanding of childhood’s graces against that old-time theory of inherited ruin. There has been a revulsion of feeling which tends to bring the heart much nearer the soul, and to give to the nursery the sanctified love of good rather than the abiding fear of evil.