XXXII

In December, 1879, we began a juvenile publication entitled Harper's Young People, and published the following prospectus in Harper's Weekly:

To Parents And Guardians,—The ten millions of boys and girls in the United States are to-day a larger and more eager reading public than the world contained a few centuries ago. The noblest future that can be wished for our country is that they shall grow to maturity retaining, in the simplicity of childhood, their love for all that is pure and good. In this age of the press, half of the influences which mould mind and character must be drawn from what they read in hours of recreation. But much of the reading now offered to them is void of intellectual stimulus, much of it appeals to and cultivates a vicious taste, and some of it seems to aim at corrupting the heart. In the belief that this great juvenile public ought to have the best and fittest literature which genius and enterprise can furnish, we shall begin next week the publication of an illustrated weekly journal of amusement and instruction, to be called Harper's Young People.

Its aim will be to stimulate and satisfy the intelligent curiosity of boys and girls. To this end its conductors will diligently seek out and set before them whatever in nature, in art, and in human life can gratify the imagination, refine the taste, excite aspiration for lofty character and noble conduct, or fill leisure hours with innocent delight. By attractive serial stories it will maintain the reader's eager interest from week to week, while strengthening his memory. Its beautiful illustrations will add vividness to its descriptions and will cultivate the artistic sense. Its volumes will be enlivened by short stories, poems, sketches, anecdotes, accounts of strange lands, incidents of daring and adventure, in endless variety. The love of the young for wit and humor will be kept in view, and healthful and harmless games of every kind will be described and taught. In short, this journal will maintain a tone of cheerfulness in harmony with childhood's right to be happy. Vice and crime will not be described, even to be forbidden. As far as possible, the world of corruption and wrong will be left to itself, and Harper's Young People will live wholly in the other world of youthful knowledge, purity, and joy.

Harper & Brothers.

A short time after its appearance Harper's Weekly announced that the new illustrated weekly for boys and girls had been welcomed with such favor on all sides, and so many copies had been demanded, that there was no doubt that it had "met a felt want," and that upon their side the publishers would fitly recognize the very complimentary reception the public had accorded the youthful journal. They proposed, therefore, to double the size of Harper's Young People and increase the beauty of its appearance by a new and larger type, and by these changes, and by a greater variety of contents and of illustrations than had been possible before, to make the new boys' and girls' weekly still more worthy of the astonishing favor with which it had been received. The publishers promised that they would spare no pains to make it the most entertaining and attractive popular weekly for young readers in the country.

The promise was strictly adhered to, and Harper's Young People soon became not only the most popular juvenile weekly published, but also the most attractive and intrinsically valuable journal for American boys and girls. C. K. Munroe, who, tinder the familiar name of Kirk Munroe, has written some of the very best stories for boys ever published in this country, was the first editor. Munroe's books are overflowing with the spirit and the activities which constitute the make-up of wholesome and vigorous American lads, and his "Florida," "Pacific Coast,'' and "Mate" series of stories for boys should be in the library of every well-constituted youth in this land.

Our esteemed contemporary, the New York Evening Post, whose well-known discrimination and conservatism in literature, as well as in politics, gives increased weight to its expressions of opinion, thus noticed the appearance of Harper's Young People:

There have been few things in the history of periodical publishing more remarkable, in a quiet way, than the precision and apparent ease with which the publishers of Harper's Young People have placed that admirable juvenile journal upon a footing of permanent and wide popularity, gaining for it recognition as a sort of necessity in juvenile life.

The publication of the first fifty-two numbers in a bound volume reminds us that Harper's Young People has existed during only one year, and there is a feeling of surprise, difficult to avoid, in the contemplation of the factf for so firmly has the little weekly magazine taken hold upon its readers that it already seems to be a sort of institution, a part of the times, a thing existing of necessity in answer to a positive need, a thing so wholly of course that one can scarcely conceive of the time when it was not, although the time was only one short year ago.

The methods by which this success has been won are those which lead most surely and safely to all worthy success. The publishers began by making the Young People so thoroughly good and entertaining that it might be trusted to commend itself without horn-blowing or clamorous laudation of any sort, and then they gave it opportunity to win the friends it was so fit to make by sending copies of it for the first thirty weeks to all the subscribers to their other journals. When the responses came in the form of subscriptions, the publishers adopted a unique method of fulfilling the promise made, they doubled the size of the periodical, and have from that time to this given just twice what their subscribers understood that they were to receive. The result of the piling of the small apples on top of the barrel has been to make permanent and enthusiastic the favorable opinion created by the samples shown in asking subscriptions.

It is a proper matter of rejoicing that another wholesome, excellent, and healthfully stimulating periodical for boys and girls has thus been added to the brief list of permanently prosperous journals of that character. The worth of the influence exercised by the two or three juvenile periodicals which constitute the whole of this list is wholly beyond estimate. Their negative influence as substitutes for the pernicious, villainous juvenile reading matter of the news-stands is everywhere obvious; their positive influence as educational agencies and as means of cultivating a taste for good literature and good art is not less certain.

The high character of the Boston Journal, and the extent and intelligence of its audience, also gave recognized value to its critical opinions. I give the following extract from an appreciative notice of Harper's Young People which appeared in that paper:

It is already welcomed every Saturday in thousands of New England homes. Its tone is pure, its articles are always interesting, and its illustrations are superior to anything ever attempted in juvenile literature of its class. While it is intended for the perusal of Bob and Mabel, of Sam and Lucy, we venture to say that it has been the experience of others, as it has been our own, that the older heads of the family find in its pages each week matter not at all beneath their notice on the score of information and general interest.

The Young People was at one time on the list of reading for the Chautauqua Circle, and Bishop John H. Vincent, D.D., then editor of the Sunday-School Journal, and the founder of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, commended the Young People as follows:

It is a noble store-house, well stocked with good things, grave and gay, for the whole household of children, from the wee ones to the boys and girls well on in their teens. Parents can make no mistake in subscribing for the current year—that their little ones may have a yearly round of joy.

Notwithstanding the pressure of public cares and the burden of eighty years, the Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone found an opportunity to examine and commend Harper's Young People. In an article by him in the North American Review Gladstone said: "It far surpasses all that the enterprise and skill of our publishers have been able to produce/' Such commendation was most gratifying, and all the more so because it was entirely spontaneous and unsolicited.

Harper's Young People met with so much favor among the little readers of England that it was found desirable to issue it in their own country, as nearly as possible simultaneously with its appearance here. The English edition was published by Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston & Co.

When we terminated the publication of Harper's Young People, it had run from 1879 to I899, making twenty volumes, a library in itself of juvenile literature. One reason why we determined to discontinue its publication was the fact that we found it necessary to create a new audience for the little weekly every three or four years, as it took about that time for an average subscriber to outgrow the constituency for which it catered.

In December, 1878, I gave the late Edwin A. Abbey a farewell dinner at Delmonico's, and invited, among other guests: Charles S. Reinhart, R. Swain Gifford, Walter Shirlaw, Arthur Quartly, E. C. Stedman, J. Alden Weir, A. B. Frost, Thomas Nast, W. M, Chase, and William R. O'Donovan, to wish him bon voyage. We little thought at the time that he was starting on a journey to the Parnassian heights of British art, where he would soon qualify as one of the leading Royal Academicians, a grand example of Yankee grit and merit.