INTRODUCTION
Reading edition
Robert Louis Stevenson, the poet of childhood, and the child poet! In giving poetic expression to the dearest thoughts and feelings and experiences of his own childhood, he spoke for all children. Better still, he spoke to all children, and in their own language. For Stevenson to remember his childhood was to become a child again; as a child, he wrote his poems of childhood. Hence it is that we all, of whatever age, must read these poems as children, or we fail to read them at all.
Children read them, understand them, and enjoy them without an effort. They need no interpretation; they cannot be interpreted. Similar childish ideas and experiences alone qualify the little reader to appreciate Stevenson’s thought. With this qualification in mind the selections were made for this book. They are quite within the interest and comprehension of normal children of six or seven years of age.
The stories in prose expand and supplement the poetic selections. The whole book is a child’s biography of a child. All the stories introduced are true in spirit, that is, true to the child character of Stevenson; most of them are also substantially true in fact. They show the child’s intense love of stories, of poetry, of drama; the fertility of his imagination; the courageous power of his spirit to overcome bodily suffering; his ceaseless activity, and his broad and tender sympathy.
The words used in the stories have been chosen with due regard not only to the child’s understanding, but to his reading vocabulary. Beside the words used in the poems, only such words are introduced as will be found in any well-graded Primer and First Reader. Hence, both in subject-matter and in language, this book is especially adapted to use in the second grade.
A suggestion about the manner of using the book may not be out of place. As an introduction the teachers should read the selection beginning on page 79. The children will read this for themselves when it is reached, following the order of the book. Each poem should be read and reread, until every word is thoroughly familiar. This will make easy the reading of the prose immediately following, which employs, to a large extent, the vocabulary of the poem.
F. E. Spaulding.
