The Children’s Hour was a monthly magazine edited by Timothy Shay Arthur. Arthur was a fervently industrious writer in the middle of the 19th century, turning out dozens of novels preaching morality and temperance, as well as publishing some 14 magazines. He’s best remembered today for his novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There, which had a long life in a theatrical version.

The Children’s Hour was published from 1867 to 1874, and was meant for children from six to twelve. Each issue contained 32 pages, filled with short stories, poems, and serials. Arthur tended to feature his own voluminous output.

The October 1868 issue opens with “The Sketch-Book,” by Mrs. Mary Latham Clark, in which little Gertie learns that her drawing lessons are not in fact a waste of time. Other stories concern the virtues of patience and altruism, a dog who leads another dog to the vet, a boy who learns the value of obedience, and a conversation between a mother and child about how God feeds the birds. Verses include an evening hymn, a homily on kindness, and a poem praising the industry of bees. Arthur himself contributes a story in which a mother tells her daughter that  angels send bad to punish sinners, prompting the frightened child to confess that she took a slice of cake from the pantry, and that her name is now blackened in the angelic record.

As the Christian Standard put it, in a blurb on the back cover, “The moral and religious tone is pure, sweet and cheerful.” What a relief it must have been for children when writers like Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear started giving them something that wasn’t a sermon! One curiosity in this issue is Emerson’s poem “The Mountain and the Squirrel”–not its first appearance, but differing in some respects from later editions. Like the rest of the magazine, it’s meant to teach a lesson, but at least it’s written in a livelier style.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)