It is mainly a labour of love to infuse pictures intended for childish eyes with qualities that pertain to art. We like to believe that Walter Crane, Caldecott, Kate Greenaway and the rest receive ample appreciation from the small people. That they do in some cases is certain; but it is also quite as evident that the veriest daub, if its subject be attractive, is enjoyed no less thoroughly. There are prigs of course, the children of the "prignorant," who babble of Botticelli, and profess to disdain any picture not conceived with "high art" mannerism. Yet even these will forget their pretence, and roar over a _Comic Cuts_ found on the seat of a railway carriage, or stand delighted before some unspeakable poster of a melodrama. It is well to face the plain fact that the most popular illustrated books which please the children are not always those which satisfy the critical adult. As a rule it is the "grown-ups" who buy; therefore with no wish to be-little the advance in nursery taste, one must own that at present its improvement is chiefly owing to the active energies of those who give, and is only passively tolerated by those who accept. Children awaking to the marvel that recreates a familiar object by a few lines and blotches on a piece of paper, are not unduly exigent. Their own primitive diagrams, like a badly drawn Euclidean problem, satisfy their idea of studies from the life. Their schemes of colour are limited to harmonies in crimson lake, cobalt and gamboge, their skies are very blue, their grass arsenically green, and their perspective as erratic as that of the Chinese. [Illustration: "TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOOD." FROM AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CHAP-BOOK] [Illustration: "SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON." FROM AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHAP-BOOK] In fact, unpopular though it may be to project such a theory, one fancies that the real educational power of the picture-book is upon the elders, and thus, that it undoubtedly helps to raise the standard of domestic taste in art. But, on the other hand, whether his art is adequately appreciated or not, what an unprejudiced and wholly spontaneous acclaim awaits the artist who gives his best to the little ones! They do not place his work in portfolios or locked glass cases; they thumb it to death, surely the happiest of all fates for any printed book. To see his volumes worn out by too eager votaries; what could an author or artist wish for more? The extraordinary devotion to a volume of natural history, which after generations of use has become more like a mop-head than a book, may be seen in the reproduction of a "monkey-book" here illustrated; this curious result being caused by sheer affectionate thumbing of its leaves, until the dog-ears and rumpled pages turned the cube to a globular mass, since flattened by being packed away. So children love picture-books, not as bibliophiles would consider wisely, but too well.