PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION.

In the course of his experience in tuition, the
Editor of this little volume has often sought in
vain for a selection of poems really adapted to the
rei{uirements of Childhood—including in this term
the period between six years of age and eleven
and twelve. There are, indeed, many valuable
works, already extant, professing to supply this
want; these, however, on trial, have been found
to contain but a small quantity of that sort of
poetry with which children can sympathize. “The
poetry which children choose,” says the author of
“Home Education,” “ is that which, with a light
descriptive brevity, brings the familiar aspects of
the visible world before the fancy; and that also
which is simply and briskly narrative, and which
is enlivened by turns of humour, and deepened
by just moral sentiments, and especially by
touches of pity.” Such poetry has a tendency to
give to the mind of a child that healthful tone,
which pure air and open sunshine give to his
body.

Should the selection now before the reader be
found to approximate even to the idea which has