with a moral to each Fable in Verse, and an Application in Prose,
intended for the Use of the youngest of readers, and proper to be
put into the hands of Children, immediately after they have done
with the Spelling-Book, it being adapted to their tender Capacities,
the Fables are related in a short and lively Manner, and they are
recommended to all those who are concerned in the education of
Children. This is an entire new Work, elegantly printed and
ornamented with much better Cuts than any other Edition of Aesop's
Fables. Be pleased to ask for DRAPER'S AESOP.

From such records of parents' care as are given in Mrs. Charles
Pinckney's letters to her husband's agent in London, and Josiah Quincy's
reminiscences of his early training, it seems very evident that John
Locke's advice in "Thoughts on Education" was read and followed at this
time in the American colonies. Therefore, in accordance with the
bachelor philosopher's theory as to reading-matter for little children,
the bookseller recommended the "Fables" to "those concerned in the
education of children." It is at least a happy coincidence that one of
the earliest books (as far as is known to the writer), aside from school
and religious books, issued as published in America for children, should
have been the one Locke had so heartily recommended. This is what he had
said many years previously: "When by these gentle ways he begins to
_read_, some easy pleasant Book, suited to his capacities, should be put
into his Hands, wherein the Entertainment that he finds might draw him
on, and reward his Pains in Reading, and yet not such as will fill his
head with perfectly useless Trumpery, or lay the Principles of Vice and
Folly. To this Purpose, I think Aesop's Fables the best which being
Stories apt to delight and entertain a child, may yet afford useful
Reflections to a grown Man.... If his Aesop has pictures in it, it will
entertain him much better and encourage him to read." The two hundred