A Visit to Merry's Museum; or, Social Values in a Nineteenth-Century American Periodical for Children, by Pat Pflieger (1987-2006)

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1868 cover

To readers picking up the January, 1868, issue of the Museum for the first time, it must have been immediately apparent that their magazine had changed. The cover, by E. B. Greene (Stern, Imprints, 56) featured four daisies with stems intertwined, and a simplified title: Merry's Museum: An Illustrated Magazine for Boys & Girls; for the first time in the magazine's history, neither Robert Merry nor his readers are pictured on the cover. The cover also boasted that this was volume 1, number 1, of a new series, published by H. B. Fuller, of Boston. Inside, other changes were apparent: the magazine had grown to 48 pages and dropped the borders around each page, giving the Museum a sleek, modern look. Those readers diving for the back pages and the "Chat" must have received a shock, for no letters from subscribers appeared; instead they found a two-page letter from "Cousin Tribulation," detailing a New Year's day years ago, when a family of little girls gave their good, hot breakfast to a family of starving German immigrants. The front cover was emblematic of the shift toward professionalism now occuring the magazine's pages: the readers have been removed, and Robert Merry has become a nonentity. The Museum had changed hands and now had not just a new publisher, but a new Robert Merry as well.

It also had a new world-view. Though the magazine of earlier years had not lacked entertainment value, now entertaining the reader was key. This did not mean that a certain moral code wasn't still emphasized in the Museum: the values and virtues of humility, submission to God, and a certain amount of self-control still held true. But a new practicality had crept in; these virtues did not simply mold the individual soul, but had a certain amount of practical use as well. Practicality was also stressed in daily life, as readers were enjoined to use their time and resources with an eye to future economic success. While, in the Museum's early years, it was important that the child be readied for its adult role as quickly as possible, now the child was valued for what she was at present -- so much so that readers were urged not to grow up and take on adult burdens too soon. The narrowed world which Stearns had presented to his readers was re-emphasized in the narrowed field of influence which Alcott and Fuller presented to theirs.

Fuller purchased the magazine in 1867 ([announcement of purchase]), but, except for the inclusion of a piece in the December issue by one of his new authors -- L. M. Alcott -- he made no real changes in the format or content until January of the new year. (Eugene Fales, the office boy who had bought the magazine after mustering out of the Army in 1865, was by 1867 experiencing the health problems that led to his death in 1868.) By this time, Fuller's association with publishing and with children's literature was well established. At age 20, he had clerked for a publisher specializing in schoolbooks; in 1864, he joined Walker, Wise and Company, which published works on theology and abolitionism, as well as many works for children. Fuller's rise in the field was rapid, for he became a full partner a year later and, a year after that, formed his own publishing company when the first one failed. Fuller's new company published juveniles, works by Horace Mann, and some theological works from 1867 to 1873, when the company failed -- probably because the offices were destroyed in the Boston fire of November, 1872 (Stern, Imprints, 46-57). (The magazine failed first: the announcement in Museum was dated November 1.)

For Fuller, the Museum was an ideal advertising medium; in the advertising section at the back of the magazine, he could announce the publication of new works. Fuller shrewdly played his book-publishing enterprise against his magazine-publishing enterprise: books published by his company were offered as premiums in the magazine, and not only were books excerpted in the Museum, but the Museum provided works which were then reprinted in book form. The chapter from Driven to Sea, reprinted in the June, 1870, issue probably whetted appetites for the book itself, which was published by Fuller and offered as a premium for the magazine. Mary G. Darling's Battles at Home, published by Fuller in 1871, had been serialized in the Museum the year before; when its sequel also was published in 1871, a chapter from it was reprinted in the magazine. The four-volume Dingo series, published by Fuller in 1870, included Famous Dogs, by "Cousin Alice" -- which had appeared in the Museum in 1869 -- and The Loggers, Mink Curtiss, and Alcott's Will's Wonder Book -- all of which had appeared in 1868 (Blanck, vol. 1, 32; Stern, "Louisa's," 387-9). In Alcott's case, she may never have known that the Wonder Book had been reprinted: it was published anonymously while she was in Europe (Stern, "Louisa's," 389). Not every serial printed in the Museum was reprinted in book form by Fuller; Alcott's "An Old-Fashioned Girl," serialized in 1869, was expanded by Alcott and published by another publisher in 1870 (Stern, Alcott, 350).

To edit the Museum and to adopt the persona of Robert Merry, Fuller hired Louisa May Alcott, a young writer who already had authored Morning-Glories. and Other Stories, published by Fuller in 1867 ([announcement of purchase]). Alcott's enthusiasm for her new job was somewhat less than keen, as a diary entry reveals:

The "girl's book" was Little Women, about which Alcott probably learned to be more enthusiastic; editing the Museum seems to have remained more of a chore, valued -- in the entries in Alcott's diary -- for the $500 it earned her each year (Cheney, 159). But, as early as February, 1868, Fuller was having difficulties paying Alcott's salary (Cheney, 166); and, "Merry is not what I wish it was," Alcott complained in a letter to her uncle, and "... Fuller mildly suggests that I should write the whole magazine, which was not in the bargain." (Stern, "Persistence," 57) Ill health forced her to resign her position in early 1870; the success of her "girls' book" made possible a much-needed rest. When she was hired by Fuller, Alcott already had published another juvenile -- Flower Fables, published in 1855. In the interim, she had written not only the popular Hospital Sketches, in 1863, but -- secretly -- some equally-popular thrillers of passion and betrayal for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and Flag of Our Union (Stern, Behind, vii-xxviii). Alcott wasn't the magazine's only Robert Merry between 1868 and 1872. Weakened by overwork and by the lingering effects of mercury she had ingested as part of a cure for typhoid during her stint as a hospital nurse in the Civil War (Elbert, 231), Alcott resigned her position in 1870, to go to Europe for her health. It is impossible to tell who edited the Museum after Alcott, for no editor is listed. Perhaps it was someone employed in Fuller's company, or Fuller himself.

Alcott and the other editors presided over a Museum quite different from the magazine of earlier years. In its last years, the magazine emphasized entertainment more than ever; stories and poems dominated its pages, though publication of songs stopped. Probably this was in response to a combination of increased competition and a changed emphasis in children's literature in general. The publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in England in 1865 and in the United States in 1866 fueled a new emphasis on entertainment in children's fiction, as did a culture which valued children for what they were more than for what they would become; entertainment -- though never without a certain morality -- became a more acceptable goal for children's literature. Dime novels, though at first intended primarily for adults, and weekly story papers such as Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper -- which were intended for the whole family -- provided their readers with action and humor -- and few moral insights. The late 1860s saw, too, a tremendous increase in the number of children's periodicals (Kelly, Children's, xxii). All of this changed the expectations Robert Merry's readers had of what their magazine should include, and they seem to have demanded -- and gotten -- an emphasis on light entertainment. When a subscriber asked for articles on chemistry and physics in 1872, he was told by Merry that such pieces would not be of general interest, for "most readers, I suppose, would prefer to have the pages of Merry filled with stories, or other light reading." ["Chat," 61 (Feb 1872): 98-100]

As a result, the Museum included many works which have as their main thrust humor and entertainment. Works such as "How a Good Dinner was Lost" and Alcott's "My Fourth of July" and "Our Little Ghost" are humorous accounts of the "naughty" child with no real moral emphasis [59 (June 1871): 149-53; 56 (July 1869): 324-27; 55 (Nov 1868): 456-7]. In several adventure tales published in the Museum, the emphasis of the piece is on action and suspense, though the tales retain a sense of morality; their heroes act virtuously, but their virtues are not made much of, and the moral of the works is simply that good will triumph. "Mink Curtiss" (1868), a simple adventure tale of two boys and a good-hearted backwoodsman captured by Sioux, was the first. Exciting tales of the quelling of a drunken, mutinous crew, of the resourcefulness of a group of castaways, of a real-life escape from a Siberian prison, and of a pious and clever hunter's escape from an ice chasm soon followed ["Mutiny Aboard," 55 (Feb 1868): 65-70; William H.G. Kingston, "Cast Away on a Sand Bank," 60 (Aug 1871): 89-94; "An Escape from Siberia," 60 (Dec 1871): 274-80; "Under the Ice," 55 (Nov 1868): 425-33]. Historical adventure serials such as "Walter's Escape" (1870) -- set in the 16th-century Netherlands -- "The Young Shepherd" (Feb.-April 1871) -- set in 18th-century France -- and "The Drummer Boy of the Grand Army" and "The Drummer Boy in Russia" (Nov. 1871-March 1872) -- set in Napoleonic times -- also appeared. Mink Curtiss's adventures could have appeared as part of almost any dime novel series; Charles Barnard's hilarious "The Voyage of the Salt-Mackerel" (May-June 1872), with its simple, staccato, deadpan style, parodies the boys' story papers popular at the time.

Few of the contributors to the Museum at this time are remembered today. A few former subscribers, such as Kitty Carroll and Sara Conant, also were contributors, but the magazine used few works by subscribers, and the subscriber-authored pieces that were used are much more polished than most earlier pieces. In the emphasis on professionalism, Robert Merry critiqued his reader's manuscripts instead of publishing them. As it had for Dodge and for Rebecca Clarke, now the Museum served as a place for new writers for children to practice their craft before becoming famous. Alcott is one example; Lucretia Hale -- who would become famous in the 1880s as the chronicler of the hilarious adventures of the hapless Peterkin family -- contributed a two-part serial in 1869. Less famous authors also contributed to the magazine before their works appeared in book form. Edgar Fawcett's poems appeared in the Museum; he later published in other periodicals (Mott, vol. 2 & 3) and, from the 1880s on, wrote several books. Harriet Miller -- "Olive Thorne" -- contributed several pieces to the magazine before launching a long career as an author of books. Mary N. Prescott contributed many works to the magazine before her collection of short stories appeared in 1873. Many contributors also were associated with Fuller's book publishing in some way. Alcott already had published a book with Fuller; Lucretia Hale and Sarah West Lander had both published several works with Walker, Wise, and Co. -- later, Walker, Fuller, and Co. At the time that Mary G. Darling contributed stories to the magazine, Fuller was publishing her novels.

The emphasis on professionalism also is reflected in the "Chat." Merry's monthly column, which had been taken over by his readers under Stearns, was retaken by Alcott, who refused to print their letters and who substituted little moral pieces of her own, often as "Cousin Tribulation" -- the name taken from the "Tribulation Periwinkle" pseudonym under which Hospital Sketches had been published. Few readers' letters -- and none that did not have some little moral or lesson included -- were published in the "Chat" after 1868; instead, the young readers' loyalties and letters seem to have gone to Aunt Sue, whose column remained inviolate until 1870. Then, a touch of professionalism seems to have crept into it as well: traditionally, the column had printed the names of subscribers who had sent in answers to the puzzles, crediting them with the numbers of the problems each had answered correctly; now, Aunt Sue announced in January, 1870, "some folks" thought the column was too long, so only the names of subscribers and the number of puzzles each had gotten correct would be printed; in January, 1871, when Aunt Sue announced her resignation from the column, even this practice was dropped, and no subscribers were credited; in July, 1871, the editor of the "Puzzle Drawer" announced that few of the puzzles sent by readers would be used [60 (July 1871): 49). Unconsciously, perhaps, the reader was slowly being edged out of the periodical -- except as a consumer.

It is difficult to determine to what extent Alcott's ideas were reflected in the Museum; some of the ideas one may associate with her outlasted her editorship. Perhaps they were more the ideas and ideals of the age than those of just one person. Alcott's childhood certainly made her different from the Museum's other editors: the daughter of deeply-spiritual but financially-precarious Bronson Alcott, she was acquainted with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller ("I had a music lesson with Miss F.," Louisa wrote in her diary at age 10. "I hate her, she is so fussy." [Cheney, 25]) and a hapless participant in the spiritual experiment at Fruitlands. Alcott's pragmatism when she grew into an adult was almost immovable -- not only because necessity forced her to support the rest of her family, but also, perhaps, in unconscious rebellion against her father's dreamy nature. The 23-year-old author of the delicate Flower Fables had renounced fairy tales by the time Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag first appeared when she was 40.

However, from her father Alcott learned several concepts which influenced her writing. The innate virtue and perfectibility of the individual, the importance of the individual will, and an emphasis on Christian ideals were emphasized by the father and later were emphasized by the daughter. Bronson's theory of education was that it should develop the spirit, and all information "'contributed to the realities of social living in accord with the Christian idea." (Hamblen, 91) The child was an individual with innate virtue which needed only to be brought out and trained. Divinity existed within each child, for Bronson -- as it did within each individual for the Transcendentalists; education was to make the individual conscious of this divinity and to help her develop it: "If children's minds could be turned inward, if they could become conscious of their own spark of truth, then they might become truly good." (Elbert, 29) Thus, self-discipline was paramount, as was individual will and independence; according to Bronson,

The individual was to look within and to conquer personal faults, for the spirit was to reign supreme (Hamblen, 84). Bronson implemented his ideas in the education of his daughters. Louisa's childhood diary entries are a succession of introspections and insights, of descriptions of faults and of failures to correct them: "... we find again and again the looking within, the trembling of a conscience sensitive to the point of excess, the despairing sense of 'bosom faults' which must be conquered. Certainly no Puritan felt more poignantly the power of worldly evil ...." (Hamblen, 83) She also records his use of Socratic dialog and a Pestalozzian unconcern for information from books (Hamblen, 84-7). For Bronson -- and, later, for his daughter -- though books were useful, the child was to learn from experience and insight.

These concepts and concerns are reflected not only in Alcott's novels (see Hamblen and Elbert), but in the Museum as well -- not only during Alcott's editorship, but after; perhaps they were not simply the ideas of one editor, but also of the society around her. A certain aura of practicality has crept in. During this period, the magazine continues the emphasis on Christian ideals and morality that Goodrich had established when he founded the magazine, and the emphasis on perfecting the inner being that Stearns had advocated; but, now, the perfected individual is ready for the kingdom of heaven only after a childhood of innocence and growth, and an adulthood of usefulness and success. Religion is still important, but there is a new ambivalence here; it is not the panacea that it had been under Goodrich and Stearns. The good individual still is to cherish traditional spiritual values, to trust in God, and to yearn for heaven, but a successful life on earth also is stressed, and religion is of limited influence in the world. There is a new emphasis on independence and the importance of the individual. Ambivalence, too, about modern life is evident. Though the city still is a place of evil compared to the country, the urban environment is more accepted than it had been under Stearns; instead of the soul-searing wilderness, it is merely a place where temptation lurks. Modern life is even more lacking in spiritual values than it had been earlier, and in a few pieces, death is presented as preferable to life in an imperfect, uncaring world. Equally alarming, for the Museum, is a modern tendency to allow children to grow up too fast and to mimic adults before they have reached an adult age. The child is still emphasized, but now it is an independent individual separate from the concerns of adult life and content to remain so. Under Goodrich, the flawed child was to learn to be a perfect adult; under Stearns, the imperfect child was to perfect itself for the kingdom of heaven; under Alcott and Fuller, the child is to be cherished for who it already is, and to look forward to the adult it will become, but to be reluctant to assume that adult's role. In the Museum, the child is still the parent of the adult -- and the moderation, prudence, charity, perseverance, humility, and devotion to duty and hard work learned in childhood are to benefit her as an adult -- but she is not to become an adult too quickly. Safe in the circle of family and home, she is to be content with being a good child before she grows up to be a good adult.

As it had from the beginning, in its last years the Museum emphasizes a system of moderation, hard work, perseverance, and control; but these virtues are to be tempered less by any moral concerns than by practicality. The spoiled rich boy who can't control his temper or his anger toward his stepfather is expelled from one boarding school after another, until the only solution is to apprentice him to a carpenter, since he refuses to be educated [J. C. F., "Step by Step," 59 (May 1871): 216]. When Lillie learns that her brother has been captured by Confederate forces, unable to control the terror she feels for him, she takes to her bed and goes into a physical decline; the housekeeper scolds her out of this, reminding the girl that her actions will help no one, and Lillie's health gradually improves. Once she is better, she joins her brother's fiancee in ministering to the poor -- which helps her to bear her fear and helps others at the same time [Mary G. Darling, "Battles at Home," 58 (Oct 1870): 157-8). Lillie's cousins are urged by their father to learn self-discipline, for their uncontrolled urges are a nuisance to others: Arthur, who can't control his impulse to give in to peer pressure, runs up a gambling debt with his wild friends and needs his brother's help to pay off his debt; the brother, Bob, can't control his temper when his grandfather asks about something to do with the secret debt, and the whole family is made uncomfortable as a result [Mary G. Darling, "Battles at Home," 57 (Aug 1870): 59-63).

In the magazine, education makes the individual a better person, but hard work is essential to get ahead. The well-educated boy who spends six months with loggers in Maine is more alive than they to the wonders around him ["The Loggers," 55 (May 1868): 181-3]. However, education seems to give few other direct advantages to those who possess it, though the role of education in the effort to ensure success is always implicit. Hard work, on the other hand, leads directly to material success This is not its only advantage; work, the teachers of an energetic young girl agree, is the only practical way in which her energies may be channeled and controlled, and she must "have work to do all her life, or she will be in mischief, she has so much power of brain and body. She is like a steam-engine, which must be kept at work, or run to waste.'" ("Hollywood," 56 (Sept 1869): 423] For the most part, however, in the magazine the most important advantage of hard work is the material success it brings. The way to succeed, one piece assures the reader, is to learn to do things for oneself and not lean on others; and no physical labor is beneath anyone's dignity [William M. Thayer, "Help Yourselves," 58 (Oct 1870): 184]. When a despondent sailor takes a friend's advice to concentrate on working hard, his cheerful willingness to labor makes him indispensable to a wealthy passenger who hires the sailor at a high wage and helps the man get his younger brother out of the workhouse ["Working is Better than Wishing," 59 (March 1871): 113-15]. After Philip Phinney must redo almost all of a hard day's labor after work one Saturday night, he is offered a better job by his impressed boss [Mary B. Harris, "Knocking About," 59 (May 1871): 281-2]. Work is essential, the author of a poem cautions the male reader, for only this way will he be ready to take his father's place when it is time [Kate Cameron, "Up and Doing," 58 (July 1870): 17-18].

In the pages of the Museum, the practical aspects of perseverance and not wasting time are also stressed. This connection is clear in the titles of a few pieces: "Perseverance Brings Success," one assures the reader, and "Perseverance and Energy Insure Success," asserts another [59 (March 1871): 127; 59 (April 1871): 156]. The young peasant in an "Arabian legend" who believes that "He that seeketh findeth, and to him who knocketh the door shall be opened" is so persistent that finally he wins as a bride the daughter of a caliph ["Perseverance Brings Success," 59 (Mr 1871): 127]. Nothing is impossible, the magazine tells its readers, to anyone with persistence, for "to act with wisdom, energy, and perseverance, is to insure success." ["Perseverance and Energy Insure Success," 59 (Ap 1871): 156] The career of engineer George Stephenson is a good example, for, born in poverty, he persevered in his quest to educate himself and eventually patented the steam-engine in 1818 [Cousin May, "George Stephenson, the Engineer," 55 (April 1868): 153-6].

Together with persevering, the reader is urged to waste no time and to use leisure carefully in order to ensure success. One reason is that the habits one learns in childhood often last for the rest of one's life; the boy who learned to waste time grows into a man who becomes a beggar ["Don't Kill Time," 59 (June 1871): 254]. Another reason is that the proper use of leisure can help one educate oneself and thereby ensure later success. And the proper use of leisure is reading good and useful books. No boy can be "noble," one writer warns, if he "believes in and covets IDLE HOURS," and the only practical use of spare time is to study the proper books: by devoting an hour a day to reading, one eventually will have read 91 duodecimo, 400-page books, which, if these books are histories and biographies, will leave their reader with a lot of useful knowledge. Many successful men had adopted this plan in their youth; one of these had lived in a boarding-house where an hour after dinner was devoted to quiet and where those who studied during this hour were successful in later years, while those who went out "to a man, became bankrupt in after life, not only in fortune. but in reputation ...." ["Chat," 57 (Feb 1870): 96; italics original] Mark, who likes to read "'nonsensical romances"' or join his friends during his spare time, is clearly headed for a bad end, his father worries; however, once he is given a good book on carpentry, he learns from it "how he could make his spare hours profitable" and uses the book to become a master carpenter, later going into business for himself ["A Quiet Study," 61 (May 1872): 215-17]. If one is going to read during leisure, the only proper books are practical ones, for fiction can be dangerous. Reading the adventure tales in the "Youth's Banner" inspires two boys to take a dangerous trip down a river on a raft: "'That paper -- that Youth's Banner -- it has fired their young hearts with a desire for travel and adventure, and they have run away"', one father realizes [Charles Barnard, "The Voyage of the Salt Mackerel," 61 (June 1872): 246]. The novels Mark has been fond of reading leave him "excited" and do him "more harm than good, for many a time, while at work, wild scenes from the idle tales he had perused so eagerly would come into his mind and make him absent or careless." ["A Quiet Study," 61 (May 1872): 217] Those who get into the habit of "reading to forget," the Museum warns, will learn that "such a habit is fatal to any very high position in life." ["Books and Reading," 59 (Jan 1871): 38]

Practicality colors discussions of other virtues as well. Prudence, it is implied, can lead to success; Aunt Sue cites the example of a successful man whose father had taught him not to play until his work was done, and not to spend money until he had earned it ["Aunt Sue's Scrap-Bag: A Good Rule," 55 (Oct 1868): 414]. Thrift, too, has practical applications which are stressed more than are any moral considerations. The girl who takes care of her dresses always has tidy clothes and thus has no need to spend more money on clothes [J. E. McConaughy, "Take Care of Your Dresses," 62 (Sept 1872): 136]. Saving one's money can allow one even greater pleasures than would be possible otherwise. Saving money for "'some useful purpose, instead of spending it on trifles that are gone in a moment"' can be of great benefit: a little girl who has earned 10 cents realizes that by saving her money eventually she will have enough money to buy the palm leaf fan she has wanted; her aunt tells her about a young boy who saved up for a wooden cart he had coveted [J. E. McConaughy, "Lula's Palm Leaf Fan," 58 (O 1870): 189-90]. In the Museum, too, it is better to act than to speak: an architect in ancient Greece who reacts to the possibility of building a great temple by lecturing on architecture to the men who will hire him loses the job to a man who says that what the first has said, he can do ["Deeds Better Than Words," 60 (Oct 1871): 169].

In the world of the magazine, even charity can have practical concerns for the giver, for the recipient, and for the community. Joseph Mason, given $200 to spend in a way that will prove that he is the "most worthy" boy in the village, spends it on charity and earns the fortune left by wealthy eccentric; he uses part of this money to build schools and an asylum for the poor which benefits the entire village ["Father Michel's Will," 59 (March 1871): 105-10]. As was true in Stearns' time, the rewards of charity are not just spiritual but material. Charity and love bring to the giver "content, and joy, and peace" [L. M. Alcott, "My Doves," 55 (March 1868): 100], but it also brings material goods. A poor boy who gives the people of his village all the potatoes they need after their potato crops have failed is given by them in return a magical Noah's ark in which the figures come alive [Lucretia Hale, "Jedidiah's Noah's Ark," 56 (Nov 1869): 508-11]; a little girl who gives the money she has saved for a subscription to the Museum to buy toys for a poor child gets the subscription anyway, when her aunt swaps her story for it [Cousin Dora, "Nellie's Pennies," 56 (D 1869): 559-62]; a poor girl who picks up an injured bird and takes it home to nurse despite the advice of others is observed by a wealthy man who brings the family the wood and food it desperately needs [Louisa M. Alcott, "Tilly's Christmas," 55 (Jan 1868): 1-5].

In these years of the Museum, however, charity is not just a virtue which leads to spiritual and material reward, but, in a minor theme new to the periodical, it is also a duty. The reader is to follow the several models of charity presented in the magazine because it is the duty of those with means to help those without. Doing one's duty is essential, for "[w]e have no right to stop and calculate losses and gain when we are plainly told what our duty is. It is selfish as well as dangerous to do so. We are to do God's will promptly, and leave events to Him"; to prove this, the author uses the example of a rich man who gives pastries to a wistful boy -- a count who, coming into his estate, hires the man -- who has lost his fortune -- as manager of the estate [Robert Handy, "The Best Policy," 58 (Sept 1870): 121-3]. Another rich man whose family has died that year hears the children of a poor family discussing their plight and "realizes" that God wants him to take care of them, now that he has no family [Margaret Field, "How Sweetie's 'Ship Came In'," 59 (Jan 1871): 30-36]. In a poem addressed to rich children, the author makes clear their obligation to the poor girl dying because "While you were so gay, in your beautiful dress,/ With music and laughter, and friends to caress,/ She was always at work, with no moment for play." There are many like her, and

You can, if you will, from the place where you stand,
Reach downward to help them; the touch of your hand,
The price of one jewel, the gift of a flower,
May waken within them, with magical power,
A hope that was dying ...  [Ellen M. H. Gates, "Rich and Poor," 58 (Nov 1870):  202]

Just as the importance of charity is still stressed, so is the importance of religion, especially Protestantism. The reader is still advised to trust in God, and duty is linked to religion and to the harmony of all creation; but there is a new ambivalence about the role of religion in the world: important it may be, but it has lost some of its all-encompassing influence and prominence. Religion is important because it makes us trust in God and act in charitable ways. Nature and reverence have combined in Mink Curtiss to make him one of "nature's noblemen," equally at home in the paths of the forest and in the paths of moral virtue; having learned to "'look up from nature unto Nature's God'," Mink is "[a] man versed in all of wood-craft -- a humble and reverential man ... and one as certain to choose the path of truth and light, as his bullet was to hit the mark -- a thing it seldom failed to do." ["Mink Curtiss," 55 (June 1868): 216] His simple reverence -- as does the equally-simple reverence of an ibex hunter trapped in an ice cave -- stands him in good stead when danger surrounds him: about to be burned at the stake, Mink and the boys he guides sing a hymn and are subsequently rescued; the ibex hunter prays, and the hole he is chipping in the ice is enlarged by a sudden warm rain, so that he escapes ["Mink Curtiss," 55 (Nov 1868): 448-55; "Under the Ice," 55 (Nov 1868): 431-2]. Trust in God also helps the daughter of the leader of a besieged city, who tries to give her life for her father's but who is saved by the people of the town, and a starving match boy who is inspired by a story about Christ to make his needs known to his teacher -- because the teacher tells his class, this was the way Christ had planned that the boy get food [Christian Byrde, "The Brave Maiden of Nancy, 61 (March 1872): 114-20; "Tim, the Match Boy," 60 (July 1871): 29-32]. Trust in God, in the Museum, may be less spiritual use than it is practical.

Christianity, not surprisingly, is still the religion of choice, for, as one character points out, it is the only religion which teaches forgiveness: a seventeenth-century Turk who has abused a Christian knight goes through a lightning conversion when he realizes that the knight's religious tenets preclude retaliation; having ingested poison to escape his fate, he declares that he will die a Christian ["Forgiveness," 55 (Feb 1868): 70]. Under Stearns' editorship, the Museum was more or less non-sectarian, but now it again makes it clear that Protestantism is the only viable sect. It is, the magazine asserts, the "pure" religion held by the seventeenth-century French Huguenots whose slaughter on St. Bartholomew's Eve is described in detail [Cousin Alice, "Pictures from French History," 56 (July 1869): 318]. Goodrich had emphasized that Catholic leaders led a duped and powerless flock; this theme is repeated under Fuller and Alcott. Among the exemplary deeds in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England, the Museum explains, is John Wycliffe's translation of the Bible into English, and the "checks" on Papal power brought about through his attacks on the Papacy [Cousin Alice, "Milestones in English History," 55 (Dec 1868): 506]; at least part of the greatness of the French king Saint Louis lay in the fact that he was "[a] servant of God ... , but no slave of the Pope; nor would he, though he loved the church, commit any injustice to please the priests." [Cousin Alice, "Pictures from French History," 56 (Feb 1869): 72] The teachings of the church are also suspect; the Venetians pray to St. Mark, a traveling Robert Merry writes to his niece, but, "I do not think this is right, for they can have no one but God to help them." The cathedral they pray in is filled with objects "stolen" from other lands. ["Uncle Robert's Letters," 55 (March 1868): 109]

Duty and religion are inexorably linked. Doing one's duty in life cheerfully and well does not simply make one happy, as an orphan girl bound out to a farm family discovers [L. M. Alcott, "Becky's Christmas Dream," 57 (Jan 1870): 32-9], but it adds to the greater harmony of creation as well, for each person's duty comes from God. Young Rhoda, hearing church bells as she wakes one morning, realizes this: " ... with the sound of the bells, each striking its own note, but all making part of the harmony, a little sense of the truth came to her, that each one doing his own appointed work in the place God puts him is making part of the harmony sounding in the Lord's hearing ... " [Mary E. Pratt, "Rhoda," 62 (Sept 1872): 123] It is, the magazine assures its readers, "selfish as well as dangerous" to hesitate to do our duty, for "[w]e are to do God's will promptly, and leave events to Him. [Robert Handy, "The Best Policy," 58 (Sept 1870): 122].

Though the essential importance of religion is emphasized, a new ambivalence is evident. Looking to spiritual concerns and having faith in God's will are important, but there is some new hesitation in assigning to them in an all-encompassing prominence and influence. When Philip Phinney is inspired by a camp meeting to become a Christian, the narrator records his conversion almost apologetically: "Perhaps some of our readers will think our story is becoming a little solemn, and better adapted to a Sunday school library than to a Merry magazine," he writes; but the "true historian" must record all that happens, and Philip's conversion is part of his history ["Knocking About," 60 (Aug 1871): 60]. This hesitation to chronicle a religious moment may be attributed to a sense that the periodical is intended to entertain, but it also may betray some qualms about the role of religion in everyday life. The villagers who are to choose the most worthy boy in the village commend the boy who gives all he has been given in charity, for he has simply done what the children have been taught is right to do in Sunday school, but they also call his views "extreme." ["Father Michel's Will," 59 (March 1871): 108] In a series of articles designed to inform the Museum's young readers about the business of journalism, the author fires a leveling blast at the power of religion in daily life: listing it with "the School, ... the Lyceum, and the Press" as one of the "great powers" of America, he nevertheless assigns the greatest importance to the press, for the school "only lays the foundation of education," the lyceum "is only in its infancy to-day," and the pulpit "deals only with things eternal, and exercises, therefore, a strictly limited power." On the other hand, newspapers and magazines are read everywhere, at any time ["Our Great Powers," 57 (April 1870): 184]. Religious values and trust in God may lead one to material success, but, in the last years of the magazine, they may not be enough.

Linked with this new ambivalence about the influence of religion may be the Museum's new stress on the importance of the individual's independent will. Independence is a virtue to be developed, for it leads the individual to success. God has given each person the capacity for independence, and this is to be developed and used so that each person may live successfully by his own principles and ideals. Independence, as we have seen, infuses the arguments against Catholicism; the Protestant heroes honored by the Museum are those who had refused to be "slaves of the Pope." We are not to be the slaves of God, either, as one character points out to his brother. Having prayed that his fear would vanish when he coasted in a dangerous spot, the boy had panicked, lost control of his sled, and broken his leg in an accident; puzzled, he complains to his brother. Receiving all we ask for, the brother explains, does not extend to feelings, for

Much of the process of growing up in the pages of the Museum's stories is devoted to learning to think and act independently, in accordance with individual ideals. Arthur, in "Battles at Home," must learn to ignore peer pressure, as his younger brother, Geoffrey, is to learn not to lean on the other boys. Polly's independence in Alcott's "An Old-Fashioned Girl" is to be treasured, for it allows her to resist most of the temptations that beset her cousin and to act as a moral example. Independence and common sense allow Milly, a southerner, to take over the cares of the household when her mother is ill, and to not only deflect the questions of a Confederate officer about her father -- in the Union army -- but to be instrumental in the capture of the officer's regiment. Being independent is essential for material success as well, for depending on others does not teach anyone how to succeed: "Many boys and girls make a failure in life because they do not learn to help themselves," the author asserts. "They depend on father and mother even to hang up their hats and to find their playthings. When they become men and women, they will depend on husbands and wives to do the same thing." Conversely, the boy who consistently hangs up his own hat becomes an orderly, successful man [William M. Thayer, "Help Yourselves," 58 (Oct 1870): 184].

This emphasis on independence is appropriate, for the concern about the ineffectiveness of virtue which was a theme of the magazine in Stearns' time was extended to the magazine under Fuller. Independence is essential if the individual is to be effective in a world where virtue may be made little of. We already have noted the new ambivalence about the role of religion in the modern world; connected with this is the idea that life is a constant battle. This idea, absent in the magazine edited by Goodrich, was verbalized in several pieces in Stearns' time; under Fuller, it becomes the main theme of an eleven-part serial. The "battles at home" that the four protagonists fight are with themselves and their lack of self- discipline and control -- a theme not uncommon in Goodrich's time. But where under Goodrich the individual's lack of virtue could be overcome simply with the right application and control -- and the right lesson taught by God -- now one lesson is not enough, and the effort to be virtuous is constant and conscious The boys' father reminds them to "'never despond if the battle be a hard one. Life is a battle, you know.'" [Mary G. Darling, "Battles at Home," 58 (Nov 1870): 208] In part, this constant effort may be a reflection of the theme -- introduced in Stearns' time -- of the evils of the modern age. For the Museum, modern times are not the best times in which to live, for virtue is rare. Describing a scene on a train in which a boy gives up his seat to an old man, one writer asserts that

In these times, one of Alcott's characters complains, "'modesty has gone out of fashion.'" [L. M. Alcott, "An Old-Fashioned Girl," 56 (July 1869): 303-4] The villagers judging the "worthiness" of a boy in competition for a fortune remark on the "extreme" views which underly his giving what he has in charity ["Father Michel's Will," 59 (March 1871): 108].

The modern city, too, is an area of concern in the magazine under Fuller, as was true of the magazine under Stearns. Though criticism is not as sharp as it was under Stearns, the city is crowded, noisy, and uncaring, a place where the poor are ignored; by contrast, life in the country is virtuous and good. Several stories in the magazine at this time deal with the plight of the urban poor -- who are often neglected and helpless, as are many of the street arabs roaming the city, scraping a living by peddling newspapers and matches. The Lawson family and a family of Italian immigrants must each depend on the charity of those more wealthy, for they can't provide for themselves [Margaret Field, "How Sweetie's 'Ship Came In,'" 59 (Jan 1871): 30-36; L. M. Alcott, "Tessa's Surprises," 55 (Dec 1868): 469-79]. Nino, a young Italian street musician, prospers only after he is adopted by a wealthy family, while Tim, a match boy, starves on the busy streets, helped only after he speaks up [Sara Conant, "Nino," 62 (Sept 1872): 137- 42; "Tim, the Match Boy," 60 (July 1871): 29-32]. Without the help of those with money, Alcott tells the reader, these young businessmen must "sleep forgotten in the streets at midnight, with no pillow but a stone, no coverlid but the pitiless snow, and not even a tenderhearted robin to drop leaves over them." [L. M. Alcott, "Our Little Newsboy," 55 (April 1868): 141] The evils of the city are made clear mostly by comparison with the virtue to be found in the country. Mink Curtiss, because of his association with the pure influence of nature, has a natural virtue that is deep and unshakable ["Mink Curtiss," 55 (June 1868): 216]. In "An Old- Fashioned Girl," Polly, the girl from the country, is a model of innocence and good-heartedness who helps to convert her cousins, corrupted by the temptations of the city. Hard-working as Philip Phinney is, he does not really begin to prosper until he leaves the city and finds a job in the country [Mary B. Harris, "Knocking About," 59 (May 1871): 220-8]. Though the contrast is not as strong as it was in Stearns' time, in the country is still the heart of virtue.

Of new concern in the Museum is the modern child. Though the thrust of the magazine always had been the need of its young readers to be improved, in its last years it voices a new kind of concern: that children -- imperfect as they are -- should remain children as long as possible. As Heininger and others have pointed out, late in the century, children began to be valued "simply for what they were -- or what ... adults perceived them to be." (Heininger, in Century, 10) Though adults still imposed their values and concerns on children, there was a new emphasis on allowing children to be "child-like," and on seeing the child's "natural" qualities as legitimate and precious. The Museum echoes this preoccupation after 1868 in many stories and poems. Some authors celebrate the child's apparent innocence and purity, asserting that she is ideal as she already is. Mrs. A.M. Wells likens a child to a hummingbird -- neither of whom can or should be controlled ["The Little Captives," 55 (May 1868): 173-4]. Edgar Fawcett would keep his lovely child "always as now"; and he addresses the readers directly, praising their "fresh, unworldly feelings, your hearts so fond and true," and their songs, which "soothe the harassed spirit when troubles thickly press ... " ["'Always as Now'," 57 (June 1870): 272-3; "The Children's Song," 58 (Oct 1870): 189]

This is not to say that the Museum does not think its young readers can use some improvement. Toward this end, the magazine presents its readers with models of obedience and decorum, and with ideals to live by. The children's New Year wishes, Alcott informs them, should be for "gifts that last": "cheerful hearts," "willing feet," "gentle tongues," and "tempers sweet." [L. M. Alcott, "Wishes," 55 (Jan 1868): 16] Many of the model children presented in the Museum possess these qualities. Sam, a young boy with a deformed back, is patient and loving and happy in spite of -- or, perhaps, it is implied, because of -- his ailment, and his cheerfulness is one of the "beautiful lessons" that such as he can teach [L. M. Alcott, "Sunshiny Sam," 55 (Dec 1868): 493-7]. The self-titled "Royal Bengal Tiger" is a charming, energetic boy who proves his claim to the title by being obedient to his parents, cheerful, bold, and uncomplaining [Cousin Alice, "The Story of a Royal Bengal Tiger ...," 55 (Aug 1868): 319- 21; 55 (Sept 1868): 342-47]. Augustus, thrust into the center of the Napoleonic Wars as "The Drummer Boy of the Grand Army," remains polite and kind to all he meets and manages thereby to win the respect of soldiers on both sides of the conflict; these qualities also help him to survive the ghastly retreat from Moscow. Examples of charity are also held up to the magazine's young readers, such as Jennie Gray -- a young girl too poor to have a pair of good shoes, who collects contributions to get shoes for another girl who is barefoot and now nurses the sick and gives to the poor out of the fortune her father has earned -- and Ben and his sisters -- who labor hard and long to earn money for the people left destitute by the Chicago fire [Anne Moseley, "Neither Shoes Nor Stockings," 60 (Oct 1871): 167-9; Sara Conant, "What Ben and the Twins Did for Chicago," 60 (Dec 1871): 284-7].

Though the basic thrust of the magazine is still to improve its readers, there is more tolerance now in the presentation of children in its pages; in earlier years in its stories, the child was either good and held up as a model for the reader, or she was bad and made to suffer for it in the course of the story. Now, however, the children in the Museum's tales may whine, get crotchety, or act willful and bad -- but still be considered basically good. Ellen Lee's campaign to be very, very bad is correctly understood by her mother to be a reaction to hearing from those around her that the good die young [Sarah P. Brigham, "Bumps and Bruises," 58 (Dec 1870): 274-7]; the "naughtiness" the narrator of "My Fourth of July" gets into that memorable day is the stuff of humor, not heartbreak [L. M. Alcott, "My Fourth of July," 56 (July 1869): 324-27); and though the Midgett children are clearly the kind of holy terrors that mothers blanch at the thought of, neither they nor their young, disobedient victims are punished very harshly [Fannie Benedict, "How a Good Dinner was Lost," 59 (June 1871): 149-53]. The children in the magazine's pieces act with a greater naturalness than had the children of earlier years. Agnes, the oldest in a family of motherless children in "Little Pearl" is as intent on getting her younger siblings out from under her feet as any oldest child ever has been; Clara mourns the death of her much-loved horse more than she does the death of the stranger who rode him into battle [M.F. Burlingame, "Clara's Sorrow," 57 (April 1870): 145-49); the house of the Midgett family so fascinates its young neighbors because they are forbidden to visit it -- so they do [Fannie Benedict, "How a Good Dinner was Lost," 59 (June 1871): 149-53].

Obedience is still stressed in the magazine, and disobedience is still punished: in a tale of ancient Crete, Glaucus drowns in the honey-barrel he has been forbidden to touch and never touches it again after he is brought back to life with a magic herb, having learned that "disobedience is always visited with its due punishment"; Allie takes off her shoes and stockings in spite of her grandmother's orders and pays for it later, after she has walked through a patch of poison ivy; the main thrust of "Step by Step" is its protagonist's downward path after he begins to disobey his parents [F. H. V., "The Story of Glaucus," 55 (Oct 1868): 382; C. Alice Baker, "The Doctor's Little Girl," 58 (Nov 1870): 232). However, "naughty" children are presented in the Museum with tenderness and humor. The boys who journey down-river on the "Salt Mackerel," the young scamps in the Midgett family, and the little child too energetic to sleep until it has had its fill of bouncing on the bed are presented sympathetically, and the humor of their situations is stressed [Charles Barnard, "The Voyage of the 'Salt Mackerel'," 61 (My-Je, 1872); Fannie Benedict, "How a Good Dinner was Lost," 59 (June 1871): 149-53; L. M. Alcott, "Our Little Ghost," 55 (Nov 1868): 456-7].

There is, however, a certain element of control evident in the magazine. Children are to act the way adults expect them to, and they should not try to be adult too soon. In a periodical which had concerned itself in its earliest years with preparing the child to be a responsible adult as quickly as possible, this is a new concern, fueled by the culture's new view of the child. In several pieces, the "modern" child, concerned with fashion and with mimicking adults and their actions, is contrasted with the "old-fashioned" child, concerned with enjoying herself innocently in a manner adults see as appropriate. The Museum's traditional injunctions against vanity and pride and its celebration of modesty and humility become inexorably linked with the new ideal of childhood. In the stories of the magazine, the ideal child is naive, honest, enthusiastic, straightforward, loving and kind, unworldly, and basically unconfident -- with the emphasis on "unworldly." The greatest sin a child-protagonist can commit is to take too great an interest in adult behavior, with an eye to imitation; and, as was true under Stearns, the good child is also the shy and unassuming one. Joseph, in a contest of "worthiness" against two other boys, is embarrassed by his own "inferiority" as he compares himself with the others, whose confidence in themselves seems to be their main feature: "Paul looked like a self-complacent trader; James had almost the conceit of a man assured in consequence of his great merit. They were no longer boys; they were young gentlemen." ["Father Michel's Will," 59 (Feb 1871): 60]

In Mary E. Pratt's "Rhoda" and, especially, in Alcott's "An Old-Fashioned Girl," children also are not to act like adults too soon. "Too soon" in both pieces is age 15 or 16, and both pieces seem aimed especially at adolescent girls, though adolescent boys come in for some preaching as well. For both authors, being concerned with fashion and fashionable clothing and with boys and adult relationships with them are considered inappropriate. Proud and fashionable Fanny Folger's interest in Rhoda begins only after it is revealed that Rhoda has rich relatives; Rhoda, who has admired Fanny's wardrobe, quickly finds her and her friends frivolous and dull and is secretly amused by the over-dressed girl and her over-elegant "beau" [62 (Nov 1872): 216]. The overriding theme of "An Old-Fashioned Girl" is Polly's simplicity and goodness contrasted with her cousin's fashionableness and aping of adult behavior. Polly is the "old-fashioned" girl from the country, unaware of herself, of fashion, and of the attractions of boys; she dresses like "a little girl," in a simple dress, sturdy boots, and short hair [56 (July 1869): 298]. She is respectful to her grandmother and affectionate toward her uncle, and Polly's idea of entertainment is playing with her younger sister and enjoying physical exercise; she sings "sweet old tunes" and enjoys a concert with such innocent pleasure that the rest of the audience enjoys watching her [56 (July 1869): 300]. Polly's morality makes her embarrassed and uncomfortable at the "fashionable" play to which she is taken, and she is chagrined by the secrets her cousin keeps from her father, for Polly tells her parents everything [56 (July 1869): 302; 56 (Aug 1869): 347]. Fanny, her cousin, is a cool and elegant young lady of 15 who dresses more for fashion than for warmth [56 (Aug 1869): 341-2] and has a not-so-harmless secret flirtation with a boy. Ignoring her father, her moral grandmother, and her vapidly fashionable mother, Fanny reads blood-and-thunder novels, gossips with her friends, and has learned to enjoy the type of play which embarrasses Polly. She and her friends are titillated rather than shocked by the scandal which occurs when a friend "runs away" with her Italian teacher [56 (Aug 1869): 342]. Fanny's young sister, at age 6, has a good start on the same behavior, for she is spoiled and "'fwactious"', and she and her friends are already concerned with "sweethearts," parties, and clothes [56 (July 1869): 199; 56 (Dec 1869): 541-2]. In the course of the story, Polly's loving simplicity wins over the family and is proven more valuable than their wealth. Whether or not Alcott's carefully-conceived contrasts and injunctions were effective is open to question, for the point seems to have whizzed past some of her readers; though she does not print the letters, Alcott received several which expressed a hope that Polly and her male cousin would marry or flirt -- letters to which Alcott replies in the Chat that the letter-writer obviously does not understand "why the story was written" and that it would do the reader good to think as she read [Chat, 56 (Oct 1869): 484]. The authors of the Museum may have had their own ideas about appropriate behavior for children, but they could not completely alter the interests of their readers.

This concern that children act like children seems to extend only to those who can afford to do so, for the street arabs in the periodical are presented as little businessmen who may deserve our pity but who deserve our business more. The narrator of one piece may pity a newsboy whom she finds on her doorstep one freezing night, but the message of the piece is that we must help them help themselves:

In the last years of the periodical, the interests of its young readers seem separate from those of adults. Few contemporary events are mentioned in the magazine at this time. Alaska, purchased by the United States in July, 1868, rates a mention in "Aunt Sue's Scrap-Bag" in December of that year; and the disastrous Chicago fire of October, 1871, is the basis of a story in the December issue ["Aunt Sue's Scrap-Bag: Fossil Ivory," 55 (Dec 1868): 507; Sara Conant, "What Ben and the Twins Did for Chicago," 60 (D 1871): 284-7). While an editorial and a declamation on the Fire appeared, they're less about the event than they are about the need for charity. However, for the most part, it is as if the Museum's young readers are expected to be uninterested in keeping up with the events of the world around them, content to be separate from adult concerns.

The Museum separates, too, the interests and concerns of girls from those of boys. From the beginning, as we have seen, the magazine had emphasized a different code of behavior for girls than for boys, but in the last years of the periodical, some literature is aimed specifically at boys, while other pieces seem aimed at girls. The home stories have girls as their main protagonists and stress family relationships, while the tales of action and adventure feature boys. This is, to some extent, reflective of children's literature in general, for, late in the century, books for boys began to be separated from those for girls (Meigs, 214). The pieces for boys emphasize not only action but "manliness" and success. Of the two ways of being manly, the wrong way, boys are told, is to rebel against one's parents, imitate adult dress, learn to smoke, and torment those who are weaker; a father who says, when his son is brought home drunk, that "'Boys will be boys"' ignores the fact that they also can be noble and manly -- that is, obedient, respectful to others, and kind to equals and inferiors [F. W. A. P., "Two Ways of Being Manly," 55 (Jan 1868): 6-8; 55 (Feb 1868): 45-8]. In other works, boys are encouraged to not waste time and to take advantage of all opportunities, in order to be successful later in life ["Don't Kill Time," 59 (June 1871): 254]; boys are also encouraged to work hard, for they soon will be men, taking their fathers' places in the world [Kate Cameron, "Up and Doing," 58 (July 1870): 17-18].

Literature featuring and aimed at girls still stresses such traditional values as home and family, but there is a new emphasis, as well, on courage and equality. The traditional, self-denying girl content to remain at home is still present, but girls in the stories are more likely to act independently of others and to show more physical courage than had been the norm. The girls in "Little Pearl" roam the countryside as freely as any boy. One serial presents as its heroine a girl raised by her physician father to be "'strong-minded"' and educated as boys are: she is taught sewing, piano-playing, and cooking, and also riding, Latin, rowing, swimming, and driving, for he means her to be, he tells his scandalized neighbors,

His death not long after this speech strikes the modern reader as a way for the author to negate such rhetoric, but it soon becomes clear that little Allie is very much her own person, "wholly unlike most girls of her age, and her mother often despaired of taming her down into their ways." [57 (June 1870): 273] The rest of the serial is a character study of a well-meaning, but strong and courageous little girl who defies the labels others would put on her. She is, however, the Museum's only example of female emancipation.

She is not, however, its only example of female courage, for courage becomes an important theme in stories about girls. During the magazine's last years, the effective children are more likely to be girls than they are to be boys. Though the boys in the several historical adventures are effective in the realm of action, girls not only exercise the moral influence of the true effective child, but are influential through physical courage, too. In several home stories we find the sweet, affectionate, loving child who influences those around her to change their ways. Polly's old-fashioned notions about love, respect, and proper sibling behavior influence her cousins to respect each other and their parents before she goes home; long-suffering little Pearl's influence stretches from beyond the grave as her heartsick older sister reflects on "how selfish, thoughtless, she had been; how unkindly she had often treated her dear sister; how naughty she had been, in very way, since her mother had died" and vows that she "'never shall be wicked any more ...'" ["Little Pearl," 55 (Nov 1868): 440-1] The daughter of the governor of a besieged town helps to win the lives of its inhabitants through her example of "courage, calmness, and resignation to the will of the Creator." [Christian Byrde, "The Brave Maiden of Nancy," 61 (March 1872): 120] However, the effective girl now influences those around her through physical action as well. Milly, a southerner loyal to the Union, softens the Confederate belligerency of a young officer with her sweetness and her good-heartedness; but she is more effective when she sends her pet dove with a message that gets the officer and his men captured [L. M. Alcott, "Milly's Messenger," 56 (May 1869): 197-202]. Kate Lunt's stamina and her knowledge of morse code help her to save the people on a passenger ship when the mechanism on the fog-bell in her father's lighthouse breaks down [Charles Barnard, "The Fog-Bell," 62 (Sept 1872): 106-17]. Courage becomes an important theme in such stories about girls; though the courage of the boys in their stories seems taken for granted, that of the girls in theirs is played up. The Museum seems to have entered a new era in its views about the place of women in the world.

One thing which has not changed is the place of America in the world. In the Museum it is still the land of freedom and the "home of the world," but there is some ambivalence about the place some of its inhabitants are to occupy. As in Goodrich's time, the place of America is smack in the center of the world, acting as a beacon to those seeking freedom and prosperity. One author links this with the Gargantuan power of the press, for "it is only in the countries that speak the English tongue ... that the editor is wholly unfettered to-day. By and by the journalist will be a freeman [sic] everywhere. Then, one by one, all the wrongs that the people have endured for ages will be swept away, and not till then." ["Our Great Powers," 57 (April 1870): 185] For the first time, the periodical speaks of the United States as "the home of all the world" -- and it says it proudly [Lucy St. John, "The Chinese in California," 57 (Feb 1870): 71]. But there is more than a little ambivalence about this new title, and about what it actually means.

The Museum's view of Native Americans loses its ambivalence in this period. Savage in Goodrich's time, savage and noble in Stearns' time, in Fuller's time they are savage and noble and few. The narrator of "The Loggers" sees Native Americans in general as lacking in civilization and energy: "The settlement at this 'Point' has long been made, and yet there is no progress in agriculture .... [H]alf barbarous as ["the red man") is, but little suffices, as he has no artificial wants, and but few ideas of what constitutes comfort or neatness." He is frustrated by their "peculiarity of concealing all emotion" while around whites [55 (July 1868): 261]. The natives who capture Mink Curtiss and the boys in "Mink Curtiss" are noble, but are deluded by heathen religion. Trusting what "Manitou" tells them, they are swayed by the "medicine" to kill their captives; however, when they learn that there has been a truce with the whites, though in the middle of trying to burn the trio, they halt the proceedings. The noble, but vanishing, savage of the magazine under Stearns becomes the frightened, culturally-vanishing boy by the end of the periodical's run. Lendall Soo, who has come with his mother back to her birthplace, is sympathetically described during his first terror-stricken day at the local school. Literally thrust into the classroom by the man who keeps the poorhouse, Lendall keeps his back to the teacher and never says a word, finally taking refuge in the school's attic until he is coaxed down by one of the boys; because he still won't acknowledge the teacher's presence, Lendall must be taught by the other boy. Throughout the piece, the author stresses that Lendall is not much different from the other children, only shyer and less companionable [A. Perry, "A Young Savage," 58 (Nov 1870): 227-9]. The vicious, uncivilized barbarian of the magazine's early years has dwindled to a frightened child being tutored in white culture.

In the last years of the magazine, blacks, never prominent in its pages, were vanishing as well; in only two pieces read for this survey do black characters appear, and one is a black doll. The Museum's treatment of blacks has changed, for little or no condescension is apparent. The black doll is presented with sympathy and, though he is a minor character, the story ends with him as, after years of gladdening the hearts of children, he is put in a place of honor on the parlor mantel, there to enjoy conversations of others in comfort and warmth [E. M., "The Adventures of a Worsted Boy," 55 (Jan 1868): 26-29). Equality of blacks and whites is stressed in Alcott's piece on one of the reform school ships in Massachusetts; here, she stresses, black and white boys mingle freely, and this is right, for "all were alike there, as they are in the eyes of the Father of all. The black sheep and the white were taken into the same fold; and the good work will prosper the better for the truly Christian spirit which makes room for all." [L. M. Alcott, "A Visit to the School-Ship," 56 (March 1869): 119]

If there is no condescension in the presentation of blacks, this is more than made up for in the way that immigrants are presented. America may be "the home of all the world," but the magazine is ambivalent about the world once it gets there. Accounts of the Japanese, of snake-charmers in India, and of Icelanders are very neutral; the author of the piece on snake-charmers seems convinced that the men are performing some sort of trick, but he is awed by the cleverness with which the trick is done and a bit amused because he can't figure it out [Marie C. Ladreyt, "The Japanese at Home," 62 (Aug 1872): 85-8; W. H., "The Snake-Charmers of India," 62 (Sept 1872): 131-2; "Iceland and Its Inhabitants," 61 (May 1872): 220-2]. But neutrality fades when it comes to describing immigrants to the United States. A piece on Italian immigrants in Boston emphasizes their "picturesque" qualities and the fact that the families don't really belong here; many look forward to returning to Italy, which they associate with warmth and plenty to eat, and the piece ends with the pathetic tale of a young Italian artist's model who dies of illness brought on by overwork and deprivation [Stella, "Young Italy in Boston," 57 (Jan 1870): 30-2). The basic purpose of the piece seems to be to get sympathy from the reader for the immigrants, but the melancholy end makes it clear that they are out of place. A piece on Chinese immigrants seems to end on a note of sympathy, as well, but the rest of the piece is as racist and condescending as one can imagine. "John Chinaman" is almost subhuman, lying, cowardly, thieving, ridiculous to look at, and possessing gross habits and silly beliefs. "One can hardly help laughing at the strange race, they seem such a queer sort of patch in the mottled quilt of California life," the author asserts. "They do everything in such a comical way!" But, the author explains, they deserve as much consideration as any other immigrant, for they have done much good work for "us," and they are eager to do more; in their capacity for exploitation, they must be regarded as are all other immigrants:

In "the home of all the world," all may come, but not all fit in.

At the end of its life, the Museum concerned itself with the problems and complexities of the world into which its young readers would move, as it had from the beginning; but it was a different world, and the magazine's editors had different ideas about how their readers should see themselves and what their readers needed to understand Samuel Goodrich might not have recognized the magazine he founded when it was absorbed by the Youth's Companion, which had been its rival from the beginning. Lost was the magazine's sense of optimism about the world and the reader's place in it, and a sense that growing into adulthood was an adventure leading one to greater adventures still, in a world of boundless opportunities; instead, Fuller presented a world where children were to grow reluctantly into adulthood in a world where virtue is disregarded. Goodrich would have recognized the dominant system of moderation, hard work, perseverance, and self-control that was still emphasized in the Museum's last years; but he might have been puzzled by its insistence on the practical, worldly applications of this system, and by the notion that religion was of limited influence in the world. Most important, however, Goodrich wouldn't have understood the magazine's attitudes toward its readers. The child whom his Robert Merry tried to usher gently, but firmly, into adulthood via moral tales and warm, instructive answers to its published letters had become the child whom Alcott's Robert Merry valued for its childishness and sought primarily to entertain, but who was kept in the background of the Museum, as an unheard -- and, sometimes, unheeded -- consumer. All the editors of the Museum were products of their times, and the magazine was no different, changing as the times changed. Though Goodrich might not have understood the world-view his magazine promoted in its last years, the Museum was still responding to the culture that informed it.

Why the Museum died is problematic. Certainly the Boston fire of November, 1872, which destroyed Fuller's business, may have been a reason, though the announcement of the merger was dated November 1. The magazine simply may have outlasted its age and died a natural death hurried by the fire. Certainly the 10,000-subscriber circulation must have been disappointing to Fuller, for it was nowhere near the circulation the magazine had in its glory days, and other children's periodicals averaged many times that (Dechert, xxix). Competition from the myriad of periodicals, dime novels, and story papers may have helped in its demise; the demise of the "Chat" may also have helped. Robert Merry had died first: possessed of his own personality when the magazine was edited by Goodrich, possessed of Stearns' personality while the magazine was edited by him, under Fuller, Merry was an anonymity -- sometimes scolding, sometimes not -- who refused to allow his readers a voice in the magazine. The "Chat" had been the center of the magazine since the column was instituted, and a few readers writing to their faithful Aunt Sue mourned its demise. Certainly the magazine's format didn't contribute to its death, for it featured the same mixture of fiction and fact, poetry and puzzles that would make St. Nicholas -- founded by Dodge, one of the Museum's former writers -- and had already made the Youth's Companion publishing phenomena.

However, the periodical, which had survived two fires, a civil war, and an economic panic, did not survive the Boston fire. At the end of 1872, it merged with the Youth's Companion, which absorbed the Museum without a ripple.

Readers of the Companion, in 1872