She was educated by a father filled with enthusiasm by the teachings of Rousseau and with advice from the platitudinous family friend, Thomas Day, author of “Sanford and Merton.”  Only the truly genial nature and strong character of Miss Edgeworth prevented her genius from being altogether swamped by this incongruous combination.  Fortunately, also, her busy practical home life allowed her sympathies full sway and counteracted many of the theories introduced by Mr. Edgeworth into his family circle.  Successive stepmothers filled the Edgeworth nursery with children, for whom the devoted older sister planned and wrote the stories afterward published.

In seventeen hundred and ninety-one Maria Edgeworth, at her father’s suggestion, began to note down anecdotes of the children of the family, and later these were often used as copy to be criticised by the little ones themselves before they were turned over to the printer.  Her father’s educational conversations with his family were often committed to paper, and these also furnished material from which Miss Edgeworth made it her object in life to interweave knowledge, amusement, and ethics.  Indeed, it has been most aptly said that between the narrow banks of Richard Edgeworth’s theories “his daughter’s genius flowed through many volumes of amusement.”

[Illustration:  Jacob Johnson’s Book-Store.]

Her first collection of tales was published under the title of “The Parent’s Assistant,” although Miss Edgeworth’s own choice of a name had been the less formidable one of “The Parent’s Friend.”  Based upon her experience as eldest sister in a large and constantly increasing family, these tales necessarily struck many true notes and gave valuable hints to perplexed parents.  In “The Parent’s Assistant” realities stalked full grown into the nursery as

   “Every object in creation
    Furnished hints for contemplation.”

The characters were invariably true to their creator’s original drawing.  A good girl was good from morning to night; a naughty child began and ended the day in disobedience, and by it bottles were smashed, strawberries spilled, and lessons disregarded in unbroken sequence.  In later life Miss Edgeworth confessed to having occasionally introduced in “Harry and Lucy” some nonsense as an “alloy to make the sense work well;” but as all her earlier children’s tales were subjected to the pruning scissors of Mr. Edgeworth, this amalgam is to-day hardly noticeable in “Popular Tales,” “Early Lessons,” and “Frank,” which preceded the six volumes of “Harry and Lucy.”

Although a contemporary of Mrs. Barbauld, who had written for little children “Easy Lessons,” Miss Edgeworth does not seem to have been well known in America until about eighteen hundred and five.  Then “Harry and Lucy” was brought out by Jacob Johnson, a Philadelphia book-dealer.  This was issued in six small red and blue marbled paper volumes, although other parts were not completed until