[Illustration: "AN AMERICAN MAN AND WOMAN IN THEIR PROPER HABITS." ILLUSTRATION FROM "A MUSEUM FOR YOUNG GENTLEMEN AND LADIES" (S. CROWDER. 1790)] To delight one of the least of these, to add a new joy to the crowded miracles of childhood, were no less worth doing than to leave a Sistine Chapel to astound a somewhat bored procession of tourists, or to have written a classic that sells by thousands and is possessed unread by all save an infinitesimal percentage of its owners. When Randolph Caldecott died, a minor poet, unconsciously paraphrasing Garrick's epitaph, wrote: "For loss of him the laughter of the children will grow less." I quote the line from memory, perhaps incorrectly; if so, its author will, I feel sure, forgive the unintentional mangling. Did the laughter of the children grow less? Happily one can be quite sure it did not. So long as any inept draughtsman can scrawl a few lines which they accept as a symbol of an engine, an elephant or a pussy cat, so long will the great army of invaders who are our predestined conquerors be content to laugh anew at the request of any one, be he good or mediocre, who caters for them. It is a pleasant and yet a saddening thought to remember that we were once recruits of this omnipotent army that wins always our lands and our treasures. Now, when grown up, whether we are millionaires or paupers, they have taken fortress by fortress with the treasures therein, our picture-books of one sort are theirs, and one must yield presently to the babies as they grow up, even our criticism, for they will make their own standards of worth and unworthiness despite all our efforts to control their verdict. If we are conscious of being "up-to-date" in 1900, we may be quite sure that by 1925 we shall be ousted by a newer generation, and by 2000 forgotten. Long before even that, the children we now try to amuse or to educate, to defend at all costs, or to pray for as we never prayed before--they will be the masters. It is, then, not an ignoble thing to do one's very best to give our coming rulers a taste of the kingdom of art, to let them unconsciously discover that there is something outside common facts, intangible and not to be reduced to any rule, which may be a lasting pleasure to those who care to study it.