Halliwell made the first attempt at any complete classification in his Nursery Rhymes of England (1842), using eighteen headings: (1) Historical, (2) Literal, (3) Tales, (4) Proverbs, (5) Scholastic, (6) Songs, (7) Riddles, (8) Charms, (9) Gaffers and Gammers, (10) Games, (11) Paradoxes, (12) Lullabies, (13) Jingles, (14) Love and Matrimony, (15) Natural History, (16) Accumulative Stories, (17) Local, (18) Relics. Andrew Lang follows Halliwell, but reduces the classes to fourteen by combining (2) and (5), (7) and (11), (8) and (12), and by omitting (17). These classifications are made from the standpoint of the folklore scholar, and are based on the sources from which the rhymes originally sprang. Professor Saintsbury scouts the value of any such arrangement, since all belong equally in the one class, "jingles," and he also rightly points out that "all genuine nursery rhymes … have never become nursery rhymes until the historical fact has been practically forgotten by those who used them, and nothing but the metrical and musical attraction remains."
Without denying the great significance of popular rhymes to the student of folklore, we must look elsewhere for any practical suggestion for the teacher in the matter of arrangement. Such a suggestion will be found in the late Charles Welsh's Book of Nursery Rhymes, a little volume that every teacher interested in children's literature must make use of. The rhymes are grouped into three main divisions: (1) Mother Play, (2) Mother Stories, and (3) Child Play, with subordinate groupings under each. About 250 rhymes are included in Welsh's collection, and the arrangement suggests the best order for using them practically, without dropping into any ironclad system.
It may be argued that any attempt at classification of material so freely and variously used as the Mother Goose rhymes is sure to stiffen the work of the class and render it less enjoyable. Spontaneity is more vital here than at any other stage of one's literary education.
What is the secret of the nursery rhyme's appeal to children? Here at least we are face to face with what may be called a final fact, that these jingles do make an appeal so universal and remarkable that any attempt to explain it seems always to fall far short of completeness. Perhaps the best start may be made with Mr. Welsh's suggestion that this appeal is threefold: first, that which comes from the rhyming jingle, as in "Higgledy, piggledy, my fat hen"; second, that which comes from the nonsense surprises, as in "Hey diddle diddle," "Three wise men of Gotham," and "I'll tell you a story"; third, that which comes from the dramatic action, as in "Little Miss Muffet," and "Little Jack Horner." This summary does not differ much from Mr. Walter Taylor Field's conclusions: "The child takes little thought as to what any of these verses mean. There are perhaps four elements in them that appeal to him—first, the jingle, and with it that peculiar cadence which modern writers of children's poetry strive in vain to imitate; second, the nonsense—with just enough of sense in it to connect the nonsense with the child's thinkable world; third, the action—for the stories are quite dramatic in their way; and fourth, the quaintness." Mr. Field also emphasizes the probable charm of mystery in the face of the unknown facts beyond the child's horizon, which appear in many of the rhymes.
Other commentators do little beyond expanding some of these suggestions. All of them agree in stressing the appeal made by rhythm, the jingle, the emphatic meter. This seems a fundamental thing in all literature, though readers are mainly conscious of it in poetry. Just how fundamental it is in human life has not been better hinted than in a sentence by Mrs. MacClintock: "One who is trying to write a sober treatise in a matter-of-fact way dares not, lest he be set down as the veriest mystic, say all the things that might be said about the function of rhythm, especially in its more pronounced form of meter, among a community of children, no matter what the size of the group—how rhythmic motion, or the flow of measured and beautiful sounds, harmonizes their differences, tunes them up to their tasks, disciplines their conduct, comforts their hurts, quiets their nerves; all this apart from the facts more or less important from the point of view of literature, that it cultivates their ear, improves their taste, and provides them a genuinely artistic pleasure."
Professor Saintsbury, as usual, adds a fascinating turn to the discussion when, after agreeing that we may see in the rhymes, "to a great extent, the poetical appeal of sound as opposed to that of meaning in its simplest and most unmistakable terms," he continues: "And we shall find something else, which I venture to call the attraction of the inarticulate. … In moments of more intense and genuine feeling … [man] does not as a rule use or at least confine himself to articulate speech. … All children … fall naturally, long after they are able to express themselves as it is called rationally, into a sort of pleasant gibberish when they are alone and pleased or even displeased. … It must be a not infrequent experience of most people that one frequently falls into pure jingle and nonsense verse of the nursery kind. … I should myself, though I may not carry many people with me, go farther than this and say that this 'attraction of the inarticulate,' this allurement of mere sound and sequence, has a great deal more to do than is generally thought with the charm of the very highest poetry. … In the best nursery rhymes, as in the simpler and more genuine ballads which have so close a connection with them, we find this attraction of the inarticulate—this charm of pure sound, this utilizing of alliteration and rhyme and assonance." Those who have noticed the tendency of children to find vocal pleasure even of a physical or muscular sort in nonsense combinations of sounds, and who also realize their own tendency in this direction, will feel that Professor Saintsbury has hit upon a suggestive term in his claim for "the attraction of the inarticulate" as a partial explanation of the Mother Goose appeal.
Through song, game, memorization, and dramatization, traditional or original, the rhymes may be made to contribute to the child's satisfaction in all of the directions pointed out.
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING
(Books referred to by authors' names are listed in preceding bibliography.)
For orientation read Chauncey B. Tinker, "In Praise of Nursery Lore," Unpopular Review, Vol. VI, p. 338 (Oct.-Dec., 1916). For a most satisfactory presentation of the whole subject read chap. x, "Mother Goose," in Field. For the origin of Mother Goose as a character consult Lang's introduction to his edition of Perrault's Popular Tales. For the theory of her American nativity