The Story of the House of Cassell
books, "Beyond the Blue Mountains." "That story," she said, "I had first told to my own children on Sunday evenings, and when I went to the editor of Little Folks and explained to him the nature of the tale, he immediately arranged that I should give him the story. As I went home, however, I was troubled. The editor wanted the story at once, and I had not a word of it written; I had absolutely forgotten the first part. My son, however, came to my relief. He was a little chap of about ten years old at that time. 'Never mind, mother,' he exclaimed, 'if you have forgotten the first part, I remember it'; and he told it to me there and then, word for word."
During Mr. Hamer's editorship the magazine attained a higher level than it had ever reached before. Meanwhile, new forces were at work. Ideas on education were changing, and people were beginning to realize that greater attention must be given to the natural needs and tastes of children. There were writers who, dissatisfied with the books and magazines of their own childhood, wished to give the children of a later day the things they had longed for themselves; artists were producing a new kind of picture for children, and new methods of printing were being evolved. These new forces were brought to bear on Little Folks by Mr. Hamer, by Mr. Chas. S. Bayne, his successor, and by Mr. H. D. Williams, the present editor. The best work of the best writers for children is keenly sought for, children are not written down to, and the serious articles are no longer obtrusively instructive or hortatory. Similarly, the Little Folks Nature Club has been developed along the lines of modern Nature study, with the result that an enthusiasm has been aroused which threatens nearly to overwhelm all the other features of the magazine. Competitions have been retained to give readers an opportunity of exercising their budding artistic talents. There are rising authors who own to having received their first encouragement by winning a prize in a Little Folks story competition; and a well-known mayor and alderman of one of the oldest
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