Nobody else in America, indeed, seems to have considered the question of writing for nursery inmates.  Mrs. Barbauld’s “Easy Lessons for Children from Two to Five Years old,” written for English children, were considered perfectly adapted to gaining knowledge and perhaps amusement.  It is true that when Benjamin Bache of Philadelphia issued “Easy Lessons,” he added this note:  “Some alterations were thought necessary to be made in this ...  American edition, to make it agree with the original design of rendering instruction easy and useful....  The climate and the familiar objects of this country suggested these alterations.”  Except for the substitution of such words as “Wheat” for “Corn,” the intentions of the editor seem hardly to have had result, except by way of advertisement; and are of interest merely because they represent one step further in the direction of Americanizing the story-book literature.

All Mrs. Barbauld’s books were considered excellent for young children.  As a “Dissenter,” she gained in the esteem of the people of the northern states, and her books were imported as well as reprinted here.  Perhaps she was best known to our grandparents as the joint author, with Dr. Aikin, of “Evenings at Home,” and of “Hymns in Prose and Verse.”  Both were read extensively for fifty years.  The “Hymns” had an enormous circulation, and were often full of fine rhythm and undeserving of the entire neglect into which they have fallen.  Of course, as the fashion changed in the “approved” type of story, Mrs. Barbauld suffered criticism.  “Mrs. and Miss Edgeworth in their ‘Practical Education’ insisted that evil lurked behind the phrase in ‘Easy Lessons,’ ’Charles wants his dinner’ because of the implication ’that Charles must have whatever he desires,’ and to say ‘the sun has gone to bed,’ is to incur the odium of telling the child a falsehood."[128-A]

But the manner in which these critics of Mrs. Barbauld thought they had improved upon her method of story-telling is a tale belonging to another chapter.  When Miss Edgeworth’s wave of popularity reached this country Mrs. Barbauld’s ideas still flourished as very acceptable to parents.

A contemporary and rival writer for the English nursery was Mrs. Sarah Trimmer.  Her works for little children were also credited with much information they did not give.  After the publication of Mrs. Barbauld’s “Easy Lessons” (which was the result of her own teaching of an adopted child), Mrs. Trimmer’s friends urged her to make a like use of the lessons given to her family of six, and accordingly she published in seventeen hundred and seventy-eight an “Easy Introduction into the Knowledge of Nature,” and followed it some years after its initial success by “Fabulous Histories,” afterwards known as the “History of the Robins.”  Although Mrs. Trimmer represents more nearly than Mrs. Barbauld the religious emotionalism pervading Sunday-school libraries,—­in which she was deeply interested,—­the work of both these ladies exemplifies the transitional stage to that Labor-in-Play school of writing which was to invade the American nursery in the next century when Parley and Abbott throve upon the proceeds of the educational narrative.