Teddy Bears At the Seaside--Postcards 1910

Pictures of teddy bears were popular on postcards in the early 20th century. Teddy bears were first developed in the USA in 1902. Named for President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, the first stuffed toy bear was invented by a man named Morris Michtom, inspired by a newspaper cartoon of the President with a bear cub. At about the same time, and apparently unrelated to the American Teddy, the Steiff firm in Germany also began making stuffed toy bears, first exhibited at the Leipzig Toy Fair in 1903. Link  These stuffed bear toys soon captured people's imagination around the world and have enjoyed enduring popularity with children and adults, and there are many informal and serious collectors of Teddy bears and memorabilia.

This cute postcard series by Raphael Tuck & Sons called Teddy Bears At the Seaside from 1910 celebrates the summer with cartoon images of the toy bears dressed and acting like humans, enjoying the beach and ocean. They are by the same artist (the signature is the same but illegible--possibly Ellery?) and are similar to the cards in Tuck's popular series Mixed Bathing (1908-1909), and Trunks Full of Fun (1913) which were recently featured on The Paper Sunflower. Link They are also similar to the Breakfast In Bed Series, also featured on The Paper Sunflower. Link These souvenir postcards were sold at various seaside resorts in the United Kingdom, and were also apparently sold in France, as some of them contain French writing, although none are shown imprinted with names of French resorts. Images are courtesy of tuckdb.org. Link

The Three Arts Club--New York 1905

The Fudge Party by Harrison Fisher (1908)

The Three Arts Club was established in the early 20th Century in New York City. It provided a safe, clean, inexpensive place for young women to live while they furthered their education and pursued careers in the arts. Living at the club gave women opportunities to study and practice their art in a supportive environment, while networking and making friends in what could often be an overwhelming and dangerous city. The "Three Arts" stood for painting, music and drama. According to an article in the New York Times archives, The Three Arts Club built an eight story and penthouse building in 1927 at 340 West Eighty-fifth Street, which was sold in 1952. Link

No further information is readily available about the fate of the organization. It is unclear whether it continued after 1952 in another location in New York, or if it closed at that time. It is unknown how many women passed through The Three Arts Club's doors as residents or visitors, but it undoubtedly served and benefited many women in the more than 40 years of its existence.

The Three Arts Club was inspired by a women's club which already existed in Paris, called the American Girls' Club. Similar clubs which supported young female artists sprang up in other cities as well. The Chicago Three Arts Club was established in 1912, and occupied the same building at 1300 N. Dearborn St. from 1914 until it closed in 2003. Link

The Three Arts Club Booth, Actors Fund Fair (The Bain News Service, Library of Congress) (Between 1915 and 1920)

The following article which profiles life in the early days of the New York Three Arts Club is taken from The Designer, March 1905. This article focuses on middle to upper class American women who were pursuing higher education and artistic careers by choice. Numerous other single women, from lower socioeconomic classes, were also coming to the cities to find work out of necessity. Their realities were much more harsh and their choices for career and housing more limited. However this article sheds light on what life was like for many women in the early 20th century who were striking out on their own and the challenges they faced. I have included original photos from the article, as well as other images from the era that portray women in the arts.

Woman Painter from The Iris (1906)

"How and where shall I live in New York while preparing for self-support?" This is an old riddle, anxiously propounded by every young woman who hesitates on the outer edge of the whirling currents of Manhattan life. She may feel a preparatory shiver of excitement, tinged with unconfessed dread, though not unmixed with the fearful joy of a venture; but when she finally holds her breath and takes the plunge, she is apt to find herself landed in the narrow confines of the proverbial fourth-floor back in the dreary barracks known as a middle-class boarding house.

Recently, however, a far more agreeable solution to the vexatious problem has been evolved by the establishment of the Three Arts Club for students, modeled after the American Girls' Club in Paris. Here the diver, to resume the metaphor, must entertain sensations similar to the dreamer who jumps over a precipice and falls through space--to wake in the soft, warm embrace of a comfortable bed, with the morning sunlight slanting across the coverlet.

And sunshine, both literal and figurative, permeates the whole atmosphere of this unique home for young women students of the three arts--music, painting and the drama. Under its friendly roof may be had, for the nearly nominal sum of from three to five dollars a week, all the advantages of the usual club life, together with the important addition of the comforts and privileges of home; for the new club house, on the sunniest corner of Sixty-second street and Lexington Avenue, combines both club and living-rooms within its four-story brownstone walls.

Revery from The World's Best Composers (1900)

This combination is furnished by no other woman's organization in America. It accommodates at present about sixteen resident members, though the full membership of the club has almost reached the hundred mark....

The need for such a student center was first recognized by its founder, Miss Jane Harriss Hall, specially detailed as diocesan deaconess for this work by Bishop Coadjutor Greer, who had lent his hearty interest, encouragement and support to the undertaking. Miss Hall has been greatly encouraged by the auspicious beginning and rapid growth of her pet project, the idea for which grew out of her connection with a club for students in the rear of old St.Mark's Church, away downtown in the old-fashioned section of New York, where young people of both sexes met for social evenings.

She saw then the urgent demand for some such club as her present institution. Many young women came to her to ask where they could find comfortable rooms, within the limited means of the student, in respectable, well-kept, well-lighted houses, and where they might receive their friends. So few lodging houses even have a public parlor where the young woman borders may receive callers. Even in the places provided by societies there are so many rules and regulations and restrictions that the spirit of real home-life and freedom which the average girl needs, as a flower needs the sun, is utterly destroyed. Out of this need has arisen the Three Arts Club, which is in every sense a home.

And the Club is not lacking in that most vital of all home influences, the mother element. Deaconess Hall is one of those universal mothers whose capacity for homemaking--that most rare and wonderful of the sciences--amounts to positive genius. She presides over the dainty tea-table in the big club room every afternoon from four to six, where her sunny face, under the nun-like white cap in the soft light of the candles, makes a picture which is carried in the hearts of her girls long after they have passed from student life into the wider currents of the world.

It is her exceptionally artistic taste, too, which is evidenced in the furnishings and hangings of the rooms. There are Liberty Prints and draperies which she brought from her trip abroad a year or so ago for the purpose of studying the club's famous prototype in Paris. There are well-bound books and pictures, cozy corners and fern-filled window spaces, sofa-cushions and soft-shaded lights, arranged to delight the feminine eye which takes comfort and encouragement from such subtle softnesses as these, as a general becomes more nearly invincible from a survey of his armies.

The house itself has been a roomy old mansion, and contains all the appointments that wealth commanded; high-arched, solid walnut doorways and cornices, great pier-glasses built above handsome marble mantels, wide windows on three sides of the house, and the many-branched candle-chandeliers that were all the delight of the builders of the generous yesterday when space was not at the premium it is nowadays.

Lady With Guitar by John Eyre From Old Ballads (1906)

Through the glass doors of the high-stooped entrance one enters a reception hall which is tiled in blue and white and spaciously mirrored on the left. To the right is the long drawing-room, done in terra-cotta, and also finding its own double repeated in the great glass on the south wall. There are always bowls of flowers about, showing personal pride and interest the girls feel in this congregating place where they foregather daily to recount in cheerful chat many adventures, merry and otherwise, which they encounter in the highways and byways of their respective artistic pursuits.

In passing, it is a noticeable fact that there is in these gatherings of the clans a conspicuous lack of the petty gossip which too often prevails among the chattering groups in feminine gatherings, and which leaves its unpleasant stigma in the average person's idea of woman's social life. These Club girls are one and all far too busy and too sanely wholesome in their aims and ambitions to bother their level heads with each other's trivial failings.

When the great folding-doors in the rear of the long club-room are thrown open, another pleasing and home-like picture greets the eye. A spacious, high-ceiled, bay-windowed room, done in rich green, with a cozy open fire and a handsome piano, is disclosed.  This apartment serves two purposes, that of music-room and accommodations for transient visitors. The bagdad-covered couches can be utilized as the most comfortable of beds, and behind one of the huge polished walnut doors is a many-shelved lavatory with running water. This is specially set apart for those whose stay is short, particularly those of the dramatic students who are waiting for professional engagements. So it happens that the old room dispenses the dual hospitality of welcoming the coming and speeding the parting guest--who are glad of so pleasant a refuge in times of stress between seasons, but who are glad to go forth to new engagements.

A Musical Comedy by William Glackens from Scribner's Magazine (1905)

This phase of the Three Arts Club is likewise peculiar to itself, in offering shelter to the members of that increasing army of climbers, known for some mysterious reason as "the profession". Young women who are studying for the stage, attending some one of the several excellent dramatic schools established in New York City, find it a most difficult matter to obtain decent quarters in the city, owing to the narrow-minded old prejudice which exists against all things and people Thespian. Many societies, including the Women's Christian Union, refuse to take them, in spite of the important new fact that the elevation of the stage is a steady process, and that the actress may be a refined, cultured, respectable member of the community. The presence together under one roof of a deaconess with actresses affords much amusing curiosity among the residents of the neighborhood, to most of whom, by the way, the club is the object of lively interest.

In one respect only does the Three Arts Club differ from its Paris model--it has no restaurant. The resident members have the privileges afforded by the big kitchen and dining-room in the basement where they get their own cozy breakfasts and luncheons, all dinners being taken outside. Each girl has her own particular cooking utensils and her special shelf for keeping them in the wide cupboards. The light housekeeping done here by prospective authors, artists and actresses, clad in huge gingham aprons, amid much merry-making, plays no small part in creating the delightful home atmosphere which is the dominant and unique element of the club.

The front basement room, of generous size, used as a dining-room, serves also as a sewing-room and is supplied with an easy-running machine and cutting-table. Here is the "den," as they term it, the girls who make their own dresses--and there are several gifted in that line--may be free from interruptions when in the throes of "fitting on" a half-finished garment.

There is the trimmest of little maids in snow-white cap and apron to "tend door" and help with the afternoon tea-things. The resident members make their own beds and keep their rooms in order, though a woman comes each Saturday to give the rooms a thorough cleaning and dusting. Several of the large, square rooms on the upper stories have been partitioned off into two rooms, each one of a fair size and a pleasant outlook. A few of the bedrooms are large enough to accommodate two, though the single bedrooms are in far greater demand, the average girl much preferring to have a nook all her own, where she may be alone to rest when tired, and so be more ready for social cheer when she comes forth again.

The individual touches to the room furnishings bespeak the abode of art-lovers. The simple good taste which teaches that a few really good things are more to be desired than a large collection of inferior ones, is everywhere in strong evidence. Mrs. George C. Thomas gave a generous check toward the furniture, and Miss Hall has contributed many treasures of her own, which she has collected in her foreign travels.

The Sunday evening supper is the only meal served and it is usually a very jolly affair. All the girls, those living outside as well as the resident guests, have the right to come to it and to bring their friends for the simple cost of five cents each. Miss Hall, in her genial, delightful way, makes the scores who attend the pleasant function feel as though each has an equal right to the rooms and all that in them is, including herself, the best gift of all, as any of them would tell you.

Goodnight Beloved by F. Earl Christy (Circa 1912)

The girls are all invited, nay, more than that, are expected, to receive and entertain their friends here whenever they wish, thus affording a pleasant opportunity to those unfortunates who belong to the "fourth-floor back" contingent. Needless to say, the Sunday suppers are the most popular features of the Club.

Thursday evening has been appointed as the special club evening for the receiving of outside friends, although these are welcome at all times. On these weekly occasions it is intended that something unusual in the way of amusement and recreation be provided, such as musical recitals, dramatic readings, palm-reading and kindred features, giving the affair a little gala touch, which makes it something to be looked forward to with interested expectation.

Autumn's Beauty by Harrison Fisher (1916)

During the last week of November a sale of art work was held for the benefit of the Club, which was largely patronized and served in lieu of the opening reception which heralded the advent of the Three Arts into clubdom only a little more than a year ago. The annual dues are only a dollar a year, so other methods of adding (money) to the treasury are necessarily resorted to. The club has been the recipient of generous gifts of money and furniture from various wealthy persons interested in its welfare. Among those is Mrs. C. P. Hemenway, of Boston, who provided its first quarters in West Fifty-sixth Street, from which it removed to the new house at 803 Lexington Avenue last September. In its new quarters the greater part of the expense is met by the rental from the living-rooms and studios, so it has become to a great degree a self-supporting organization.

The Violinist by Harrison Fisher (1911)

"I hope," says Miss Hall, "to see the Three Arts Club the center of all the student-life in New York. So far most of our members are art students and we have a good many from the dramatic schools. The students of music, both vocal and instrumental, are harder to reach. They are the most numerous of all, too. Not long ago, I procured a registry of all the students in New York, and discovered that the women who were devoting their time to music were nearly double in number to those studying the other two arts. The trouble is that in the music the pupils study under many different teachers, and do not hear of the Club as do members of large art and dramatic classes.

"The Club spent last June at the Holiday House, Lake George (New York), a beautiful place given by Spencer Trask and Foster P. Peabody, of this city, to Miss M.W. Fuller of Troy, for a Girls' Friendly House and which she was good enough to loan us for that month. There were thirty girls and they formed a sketch class with Jerome Meyers as instructor. Perhaps we may be equally fortunate next summer.

I have received many letters from all over the country from mothers whose girls are coming to this big, roaring city to study music, art or dramatics, and who are anxious to place them under the protection of the Three Arts Club. Its permanent success seems assured. In time, it is my dream to have a house all our own, where, with no rent to pay, and a club restaurant convenient--next door--we may provide a club-home for fifty or a hundred girls. I am sure I could fill such a house--so rapid and spreading has been the growth of this newest of girls' clubs."

In the wonderful increase in the army of brave women who are self-supporting, there is a corresponding branching out to independence of the right kind, which the average boarding house or the old-fashioned home for women does not supply. This the club quarters, if its hopes of augmentation in the future are realized, will give, and the girl who resides under its roof will be as free to go and come as would her brother in his masculine club, for it will be understood, when she is admitted as a member, that she has self-poise, and understands the laws of the polite world too well to willfully break them. 

It is plainly evident in our great cities there are not enough men escorts to go around, and it is not fair on that account that the single woman be debarred from enjoyment of good dramatic entertainments, lectures, concerts, and the like, to attend which she must necessarily be out frequently until after ten o'clock at night, the hour when the old fashioned home for women and the average boarding-house bar their doors. The latter may supply a latch key, but the former never does. This in itself is a restriction unpleasant to an independent, honest, busy woman, who after a day of hard work deserves her evening of harmless amusement. Again, there are little rasping rules where women have heretofore made their homes regarding the burning of gas, inviting friends to dinner without permission, etc., etc., of all which the club girl of the future will be blissfully free.

Artist Lady by Howard Chandler Christy (1909)

Primary Colors: Red, Yellow and Blue

Illuminated letter P in the 1407AD Latin Bible, Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England Link

The Primary Colors are red, yellow and blue. Primary colors are the foundation of all colors, because the other colors are created when primary colors are mixed together. Primary colors in their pure form make a statement: they are bold, bright and straightforward. In home and fashion design they are often used alone and muted when used together, transformed into colors such as pink, burgundy, gold and light blue which are softer on the eyes and create a less jarring effect.

But primary colors in their true form can be very appealing in small doses and are commonly found  together in modern art, comics, toys, plastic furniture and sometimes even in nature.

The following are examples of primary colors used together from the late 19th century to the present day. Some are in pure form, some are more muted. They are used for different purposes and create different impressions based on their context. There is no unifying theme to these images, except that they contain all three primary colors. They are provided here for inspiration and reflection.

Poster by Jules Cheret (1896)

Poster by Jules Cheret (1896)

Poster by Leonetto Cappiello (1899)

DINNER MENUS NIPPON YUSEN KAISHA SS KOBE MARU 

(INCLUDES MAP OF STEAMER ROUTES)  (1900) (Courtesy of NY Public Library)

 Alphonse Mucha Illustrations from The New York Daily News (1904) (courtesy of  wikiart.org)

Valentine Early 1900s

Valentine Early 1900s

Postcard Early 1900s

Postcard Early 1900s

Valentine Circa 1910

Postcard 1910

Birthday Card Circa 1910

Strong's Book of Designs (1917)

Tableau 1 by Piet Mondrian (1921)

Comic Book 1950s (Courtesy of digitalcomicmuseum.com) Link

Flags of Spain and Argentina
(courtesy of pixabay.com)

Tricycle (courtesy of pixabay.com)

 Plastic Chairs (Courtesy of deathtothestockphoto.com) Link

 Child With Plastic Block Toys (Photo by Sergey Klimkin, courtesy of pixabay.com)

Fresh Fruit
(courtesy of pixabay.com)

Macao
(courtesy of pixabay.com)

Poppy and Wildflowers
(courtesy of pixabay.com)

Poems to Remember

A Windy Day by Jessie Willcox Smith (1908)

When I was a little girl my great-grandmother,  who was born in 1887 in Atlantic City, N.J., used to recite a poem to me that she had learned when she was in school. At ninety, she could still remember every word, and my grandmother, realizing what a treasure this poem was, copied it down and preserved the page in the family Bible. In the days before the Internet, we had no way to know that it was a famous poem, and we thought it might be gone forever once "Mammy" passed away. The poem was called "Come Little Leaves", and it was actually a popular poem of the era, one that many children learned by heart when they were very young.

Raking Leaves by Jessie Willcox Smith

Come Little Leaves

 “Come little leaves,” said the wind one day,

“Come o’er the meadows with me and play;

Put on your dresses of red and gold,

Summer is gone and the days grow cold.”

Soon as the leaves heard the wind’s loud call,

Down they came fluttering one and all;

Over the brown fields they danced and flew,

Singing the glad little songs they knew.

Dancing  and whirling the little leaves went,

Winter had called them and they were content;

Soon fast asleep in their earthly beds

The snow laid a white blanket over their heads.

--George Cooper

 

Illustration by Ethel Franklin Betts, from A Little Princess (1905)

In previous generations, memorization was an extremely important part of a child's education. It was not only important for academic or vocational success; it was seen as part of a moral foundation, to build good character and to equip children for a productive and ethical life. Much of education in the 19th and early 20th centuries appears harsh, rote and repetitive by today's standards. But grounded in history, tradition, and religious values, this type of education often succeeded in building self discipline and providing a foundation of knowledge and a moral compass that was intended to strengthen people throughout their lives.  

 

At School by Jessie Willcox Smith (1920

In addition to memorizing multiplication tables, Bible verses, prayers, hymns, famous speeches and patriotic songs, children also memorized poems. And these poems became part of them, enriching their lives by offering wisdom, comfort, and an appreciation of the beauty of language.

A 1905 book, Child’s Calendar Beautiful , Arranged by R. Katharine Beeson, was a collection of poems and prose selections to be memorized by children in the Lafayette Indiana schools, “as a part of the regular courses in English and ethics." Arranged by season and grade level., "(this book) had its beginning in the oft repeated request of the children to ‘read again’ certain favorite selections. The list, short at first, read again and again, and finally learned by heart, included at few poems whose richness of imagery and brilliance of word-coloring afforded the children a satisfactory expression for their own enjoyment of the beauty of the outdoor world around them. It was easy to extend it to include others whose recognized literary merit made an acquaintance with them desirable; still others whose strong human interest both stimulated and offered a means of expression for feelings which might grow into high ideals of what man’s relations to his neighbor ought to be; and others still, whose appeal is almost wholly to the moral nature….” The poem my great-grandmother learned as a child in the 1890s, "Come Little Leaves" is one of the poems included in this book.

At School by Jessie Willcox Smith (1909)

The following quotes, emphasizing the importance of poetry as a necessary part of education and of life  are taken from Child’s Calendar Beautiful: 

"In the course of our reading we should lay up in our minds a store of goodly thoughts in well-wrought words, which shall be a living treasure of knowledge always with us, and from which, at various times, and amidst all the shifting of circumstances, we might be sure of drawing some comfort, guidance, and sympathy."

__Sir Arthur Helps

Our teachers of English are called upon to use our unsurpassed English literature, as it has never been used before, toward the formation of character, the enrichment of life and the refinement of manners.

--Percival Chubb

Whatever Your occupation may be, and however crowded your hours with affairs, do not fail to secure at least a few minutes every day for refreshment of your inner life with a bit of poetry. Poetry is one of the most efficient means of education of the moral sentiment as well as of the intelligence. It is the source of the best culture. Let a man truly possess himself of any one of the works of the great poets, and no matter whatever else he may fail to know, he is not without education. To learn by heart the best poems is one of the best parts of the school education of the child.

--Charles Eliot Norton

Reading Together by Jessie Willcox Smith (1921)

Some poems were simple rhymes for young children with a moral message; others were great literary works by famous authors. Many impart a sense of wonder about the natural world, and may include allusions to fairies and magic. Others are meant to provoke thought, or are historically and culturally important. Some poems were very brief, but children often memorized long passages or even entire epic poems, such as "The Song of Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Many of the same poems, written by British and American authors, were commonly memorized throughout the English speaking world, with some national and regional variations. American children learned poems such as "O Captain, My Captain", Walt Whitman's tribute to President Abraham Lincoln written after his assassination in 1865. 

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

President Lincoln With His Youngest Son Tad (1864) Link

Irish children memorized poems by British and American authors, as well as poems in the Irish language. They also became familiar with the poetry of Irish poets who wrote in English, such as William Butler Yeats and William Allingham. 

Cat In the Moonlight by Theophile Steinlen Link

                                              THE CAT AND THE MOON

The cat went here and there

And the moon spun round like a top,

And the nearest kin of the moon,

The creeping cat, looked up.

Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,

For, wander and wail as he would,

The pure cold light in the sky

Troubled his animal blood.

Minnaloushe runs in the grass

Lifting his delicate feet.

Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?

When two close kindred meet,

What better than call a dance?

Maybe the moon may learn,

Tired of that courtly fashion,

A new dance turn.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

From moonlit place to place,

The sacred moon overhead

Has taken a new phase.

Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils

Will pass from change to change,

And that from round to crescent,

From crescent to round they range?

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

Alone, important and wise,

And lifts to the changing moon

His changing eyes.

 --William Butler Yeats (1919)

Leprechaun or Clurichaun (1862) link
Image from Croker, T. C.- Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland.

                                            The Faeries

 

UP the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren't go a-hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather!

Down along the rocky shore

Some make their home,

They live on crispy pancakes

Of yellow tide-foam;

Some in the reeds

Of the black mountain lake,

With frogs for their watch-dogs,

All night awake.

High on the hill-top

The old King sits;

He is now so old and gray

He 's nigh lost his wits.

With a bridge of white mist

Columbkill he crosses,

On his stately journeys

From Slieveleague to Rosses;

Or going up with music

On cold starry nights

To sup with the Queen

Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget

For seven years long;

When she came down again

Her friends were all gone.

They took her lightly back,

Between the night and morrow,

They thought that she was fast asleep,

But she was dead with sorrow.

They have kept her ever since

Deep within the lake,

On a bed of flag-leaves,

Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,

Through the mosses bare,

They have planted thorn-trees

For pleasure here and there.

If any man so daring

As dig them up in spite,

He shall find their sharpest thorns

In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren't go a-hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather!

--William Allingham

The Spring Cleaning by Harrison Cady (1908)

The following are some more enjoyable examples of these poems from bygone years. Some have been forgotten, and some are still found today in popular poetry anthologies.

 

 A Apple Pie By Kate Greenaway (1886)

The Golden Rule

Be to others kind and true

As you’d have others be to you.

 From  Child's Calendar Beautiful (1905)

Alphabetic Gems

From  Child's Calendar Beautiful (1905)

As little by little the oak trees grow,

So little by little I’ll try to know;

One of these days perhaps we’ll see

The world will be the better for me.

Be kind and gentle

To those who are old,

For dearer is kindness

And better than gold.

Cherish what is good and drive

Evil thoughts and feelings far,

For as sure as you’re alive

You will show for what you are

--Phoebe Cary 

Do not look for wrong and evil

You will find them if you do;

As you measure to your neighbor

He will measure back to you.

--Alice Cary

 

Every gentle word you say

One dark spirit drives away;

Every gentle deed you do

One bright spirit brings to you.

--Virginia Harrison

 

From Christmas Roses by Lizzie Lawson (1886)

  Kind hearts are the gardens,

Kind thoughts are the roots,

Kind words are the blossoms,

Kind deeds are the fruits.

No matter what you try to do,

At home or at your school,

Always do your very best,

There is no better rule.

One child sees sunlit air and sky,

And bursting leaf-buds round and ruddy.

Another looks down at the earth

And only sees that it is muddy.

Politeness is to do and say

The kindest thing in the kindest way.

Very little foxes

Spoil the vines, you know;

Very little ugly traits

Into big ones grow.

Yet when you come to think of it

The day is what you make it;

And whether good or whether bad

Depends on how you take it.

 

Potting Tulips by Jessie Willcox Smith

The Heart of A Seed

In the heart of a seed,

Buried deep, so deep,

A dear little plant lay fast asleep.

“Awake,” said the sunshine,

“And creep to the light.”

“Awake,” said the voice

Of the raindrop bright.

The little plant heard

And rose to see

What this beautiful outside world

might be.

--Author Unknown

                          
                            Daffodils
              by Wiiliam Wordsworth (1815)

Daffodil by Kate Greenaway (1884)

        I wandered lonely as a cloud
          That floats on high o'er vales and hills,           
          When all at once I saw a crowd,
          A host, of golden daffodils;
          Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
          Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
          
          Continuous as the stars that shine
          And twinkle on the milky way,   
          They stretched in never-ending line
          Along the margin of a bay:
          Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
          Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
          The waves beside them danced; but they
          Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
          A poet could not but be gay,
          In such a jocund company:
          I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
          What wealth the show to me had brought:
          For oft, when on my couch I lie
          In vacant or in pensive mood,
          They flash upon that inward eye
          Which is the bliss of solitude;
          And then my heart with pleasure fills,
          And dances with the daffodils.

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

--Joyce Kilmer (1913)

Scrumping by Kate Greenaway (1890)

A Psalm of Life

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
     Life is but an empty dream!—
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
     And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
     And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
     Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
     Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
     Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
     And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
     Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
     In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
     Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
     Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
     Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
     We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
     Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
     Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
     Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
     With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
     Learn to labor and to wait.

                                                                                         --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1838)

Ethel Franklin Betts (1905)

Clouds

White sheep, white sheep,

On a blue hill,

When the wind stops,

You all stand still.

When the wind blows,

You walk away slow.

White sheep, white sheep,

Where do you go?

--Christina Rossetti

Rainy Day by Jessie Willcox Smith (1922)

 

Rain THE RAIN is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

--Robert Louis Stevenson

                                                                         

                                                                        Sea Fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

                                                                                    -- By John Masefield (1916)

 

From Nister's Holiday Annual (1897)

Sweet and Low

Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the best,
Silver sails all out of the west,
Under the silver moon:
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

 --Alfred, Lord Tennyson

If you would like more information, the following books are good sources of additional poems that children memorized when they were young and cherished all their lives. 

Child's Calendar Beautiful, Arranged by R. Katherine Beeson, Burt-Terry-Wilson Co., Lafayette Indiana (1905) (Public Domain, available at Hathi Trust)  Link

Favourite Poems We Learned in School, by Thomas F. Walsh (Editor),  Irish Amer Book Co. (1998) (Poems in English)

More Favourite Poems We Learned in School, by Thomas F. Walsh (Editor),  Irish Amer Book Co. (1998) (Poems in English)

Favourite Poems We Learned in School As Gaeilge, by Thomas F. Walsh (Editor), Irish Amer Book Co. (1998) (Poems in the Irish language)