Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1839, BY S. G. GOODRICH, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED BY GEO. A. & J. CURTIS, PREFACE. THE author of this volume is under great obligations to the public, for the kindness with which his humble productions, under the fiction of Peter Parley, have been received: they have had a much larger share of attention than, as literary performances, they could claim; for even excellence in this species of composition-to which he lays no claimdemands less of genius than discipline. The writer for children must make children, not men, his critics; he must be indifferent to the sneers of the scholar, and turn his back upon that species of ambition which animates the common arena of the world. He must descend from that "exceeding high mountain" to which the tempter would elevate him, and bidding adieu to its dazzling land scapes, sit down in humble companionship with childhood431973 MAR 21 29 and that too under a conviction that "of such is the king dom of heaven." Though this pursuit is regarded as a humble, and often a mean, vocation, yet it is not without the means of vindication, even in the light of philosophy. If a man can look to results, and be satisfied with benefits done to his race, he may find compensation for the sacrifices he is called upon to make, in devoting his life to the moral and intellectual culture of children. These open a field of prolific soil, which may be successfully cultivated, even by very humble abilities. The oak defies the efforts of a giant to change its form, but the pigmy may shape the sapling as he will. Genius may therefore waste a life in vain efforts upon hardened manhood, while youth, yielding to the slightest touch, may be moulded, in hundreds and thousands, by a far inferior hand, into the image of God. It may seem that benefitting the rising generation is like setting out trees for posterity, whose fruit or shade we cannot share; but this suggestion leaves out of view the satisfaction which flows from the ever-springing fountain of conscious benevolence. |