COPYRIGHT, 1899,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

917.3

E120

Norwood Press

7. S. Cushing & Co.-Berwick & Smith

Norwood Mass. U.S. A.

THIS BOOK

HAS BEEN WRITTEN

IN TENDER MEMORY

OF A

DEARLY LOVED AND LOVING CHILD

HENRY EARLE, JUNIOR

MDCCCLXXX-MDCCCXCII

Foreword

When we regard the large share which child study has in the interest of the reader and thinker of to-day, it is indeed curious to see how little is told of child life in history. The ancients made no record of the life of young children; classic Rome furnishes no data for child study; the Greeks left no child forms in art. The student of original sources of history learns little about children in his searches; few in number and comparatively meagre in quality are the literary remains that even refer to them.

We know little of the childhood days of our forbears, and have scant opportunity to make comparisons or note progress. The child of colonial days was emphatically "to be seen, not to be heard," much in evidence to the eye.

nor was he even to be

He was of as little or ethical relations as

importance in domestic, social, his childish successor is of great importance to-day; it was deemed neither courteous, decorous, nor wise to make him appear of value or note in his own eyes or in the eyes of his seniors. Hence there was none of that exhaustive study of the motives, thoughts, and acts of a child which is now rife.

The accounts of oldtime child life gathered for this book are wholly unconscious and full of honesty and simplicity, not only from the attitude of the child, but from that of his parents, guardians, and friends. The records have been made from affectionate interest, not from scientific interest; no profound search has been made for motives or significance, but the proof they give of tenderness and affection in the family are beautiful

to read and to know.

The quotations from manuscript letters, records, diaries, and accounts which are here given could only have been acquired by precisely the method which has been followed, a constant and distinct search for many years, combined with an alert watchfulness for items or even hints relating to the subject, during as many years of extended historical reading. Many private collections and many single-treasured relics have been freely offered for use, and nearly all the sentences and pages selected from these sources now appear in print for the first time. The portraits of children form a group as rare as it is beautiful. They are specially valuable as a study of costume. Nearly all of these also are as true emblems of the generous friendship of the present owners as they are of the life of the past. The rich stores of our many historical associations, of the Essex Institute, the American Antiquarian Society, the Long Island Historical Society, the Deer