The Cry of the Children

[On the subject of infant education it has been suggested that
more advantageous results might be obtained if, instead of
filling children's minds with such nonsense as fairy-tales,
stories were read to them about Julius Caesar.]

O my Brothers, do you hear the children weeping?
Do you note the teardrops tumbling from their eyes?
To the school-house they reluctantly are creeping,

Discontented with the teaching it supplies.
At the quality of modern education
Little urchins may with justice look askance,
Since it panders to a child's imagination,
And encourages romance.

Do you see that toddling baby with a bib on,
How his eyes with silent misery are dim?
He is yearning for the chance of reading Gibbon;
But his teachers give him nothing else but Grimm!
What a handicap to infantile ambition!
'Tis enough to make the brightest bantling fume,
To be gammoned with an Andrew Lang edition,
When he longs for Hume, sweet Hume!

See that tiny one, what boredom he expresses!
What intolerance his frequent yawns evince
Of the fairy-tales where beautiful princesses
Are delivered from a dragon by a prince!
How he curses the pedantic institution
Where he can't obtain such volumes as "Le Cid,"
Or that masterpiece on "Social Evolution"
By another kind of Kidd!

Do you hear the children weeping, O my Brothers?
They are crying for Max Mueller and Carlyle.
Tho' Hans Andersen may satisfy their mothers,
They are weary of so immature a style.
And their time is far too brief to be expended
On such nonsense as their "rude forefathers" read;
For they know the days of sentiment are ended,
And that Chivalry is dead!

Oh remember that the pillars of the nation
Are the children that we discipline to-day;
That to give them a becoming education
You must rear them in a reasonable way!
Let us guard them from the glamour of the mystics,
Who would throw a ray of sunshine on their lives!
Let us feed each helpless atom on statistics,
And pray Heaven he survives!

Let us cast away the out-of-date traditions,
Which our poets and romanticists have sung!
Let us sacrifice the senseless superstitions
That illuminate the fancies of the young!
If we limit our instruction to the "reals,"
We may prove to ev'ry baby from the start,
The futility of cherishing ideals
In his golden little heart!

End of title