“Now the day soon appear’d
    But she very much fear’d
    She should not be permitted to go. 
    Her best frock she had torn,
    The last time it was worn;
    Which was very vexatious, you know.”

However, the mother consents with the caution: 

   “Not to greedily eat
    The nice things at the treat;
    As she much wished to break her of this.”

Arrived at the party, Nancy shared the games, and

   “At length was seated,
    With her friends to be treated;
    So determin’d on having her share,
    That she drank and she eat
    Ev’ry thing she could get,
    Yet still she was loth to forbear.”

The disastrous consequences attending Nancy’s disregard of her mother’s admonition are displayed in a full-page illustration, which is followed by another depicting the sorrowful end in bed of the day’s pleasure.  Then the moral: 

   “My young readers beware,
    And avoid with great care
    Such excesses as these you’ve just read;
    For be sure you will find
    It your interest to mind
    What your friends and relations have said.”

Perhaps of all the toy imprints of the early century none are more curious in modern eyes than the three or four German translations printed by Philadelphia firms.  In eighteen hundred and nine Johnson and Warner issued “Kleine Erzaehlungen ueber ein Buch mit Kupfern.”  This seems to be a translation of “A Mother’s Remarks over a Set of Cuts,” and contains a reference to another book entitled “Anecdoten von Hunden.”  Still another book is extant, printed in eighteen hundred and five by Zentler, “Unterhaltungen fuer Deutsche Kinder.”  This, according to its preface, was one of a series for which Jacob and Benjamin Johnson had consented to lend the plates for illustrations.

Patriotism, rather than diversion, still characterized the very little original work of the first quarter of the century for American children.  A book with the imposing title of “Geographical, Statistical and Political Amusement” was published in Philadelphia in eighteen hundred and six.  “This work,” says its advertisement, “is designed as an easy means of uniting Instruction with Pleasure ... to entice the youthful mind to an acquaintance with a species of information [about the United States] highly useful.”

“The Juvenile Magazine, or Miscellaneous Repository of Useful Information,” issued in eighteen hundred and three, contained as its only original contribution an article upon General Washington’s will, “an affecting and most original composition,” wrote the editor.  This was followed seven years later by the well-known “Life of George Washington,” by M.L.  Weems, in which was printed the now famous and disputed cherry-tree incident.  Its abridged form known to present day nursery lore differs from the long drawn out account by Weems, who, like Thomas Day, risked being diffuse in his desire to show plainly his moral.  The last part of the story sufficiently gives his manner of writing: