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To write for the entertainment and instruction of children, in such a style as to be both useful and agreeable to them, is one of those nice problems which it has taken some of the most distinguished authors of our times to solve in a satisfactory manner. Children are pretty good critics in their way. They are excellent judges of effect. Their moral perceptions are unsophisticated. Their sympathies are all alive. They enter into the spirit of a story, without reserve, provided always, that there is any spirit in it. They are wedded to no system. They belong neither to the romantic nor the classical school. They relish nature in her simplicity; and the common sense of mankind, which is pronounced by high authority to be the ultimate standard of taste, is precisely the standard to which children refer the books which they read. Their sense is common sense. Whoever really pleases them is capable of pleasing the public of grown up people—"the children of a larger growth."

It is with a full understanding of this doctrine that the editor of the "Child's Favorite" has entered upon her duties. In the preparation of the volume she has aimed at sterling merit. She has chosen her stories with reference not only to their moral effect, but their artistical effect on the perceptions of children. How far she has succeeded in this design the public, that is to say, the juvenile public, will very promptly decide.