It is a comparatively simple affair to bring a child into the world. It is another matter to bring up a child once you have him. Civilized society is more or less agreed that here Nature needs much assistance, much understanding. Child-education is as prolific a subject as any other dear to the heart of man for public theorizing, wise and otherwise.
Last week, one Mrs. Winifred Sackville Stoner Jr.* permitted herself to be interviewed by newspaper reporters about a book she was just completing to set forth the "unquestionably" evil influence exerted by popular nursery jingles upon infant minds. Mother Goose† herself was the object of Mrs. Stoner's determined attack and the reporters were told, in no uncertain tones, that:
Simple Simon, meeting a pieman and making a request the economic premise of which was visibly fallacious, "glorifies stupidity."
Little Jack Horner, sitting in his corner and eating with his fingers, inculcates bad table-manners.
The spider in Little Miss Muffitt and the lupine ancestress in Little Red Riding Hood breed fear-complexes.
The exciting verse—Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick—"puts ideas into children's heads . . . they might kill themselves, or at least do themselves bodily injury."
The tragic verse—Tom, Tom, the Piper's son Stole a pig and away he run.
The pig was eat and Tom was beat And Tom went howling down the street—is obviously "bad grammar, bad morals." I chiefly object," said earnest Mrs. Stoner "to teaching children such nonsense because it misrepresents life. . . . It is not only criminal to do so but it helps to make criminals of children." Then, to show that she was not merely a destructive critic, Mrs. Stoner recited one of the numerous "jingle facts" that she has written in the hope of ousting Mother Goose:
Every perfect person owns Just two hundred and six bones.
Also:
In 1732
George Washington first said boohoo!
A day or two after the Stoner interview appeared, one Kitty Cheatham* purchased four full columns of advertising space in another newspaper. Kitty Cheatham was bound that Mrs. Stoner should not enjoy exclusive credit for the great Mother Goose expose. Kitty Cheatham wrote in her large advertisement :
''Perhaps Mrs. Stoner does not know that this idea ... is not new, but has been radically advanced, logically analyzed and fearlessly uprooted in an illuminating children's book entitled Greetings and a Message to the Dear Children, by Augusta E. Stetson, C.S.D. (Doctor of Christian Science). ... In this lovely book, the author . . . enables a child to think intelligently, in response to the law of God, or Spirit.
"During her 22 years of close association with children in the Sunday School of her church, First Church of
Christ Scientist, New Y,ork City, Mrs. Stetson devoted her tireless efforts. . . . But to return to Mother Goose , . .. let me quote the following from Mrs. Stetson's book: