Perhaps one of the most-quoted (and most misquoted!) descriptions of the influence of Peter Parley on a generation; “Peter Parley” appeared in Martin’s “Conversation Corner,” a column for children which sometimes featured queries from adults looking for the source of memorable poems and stories from their early-19th-century childhoods. The poem recalled here originally appeared in Peter Parley’s Method of Telling About Geography to Children, which was reprinted well into the 19th century.

http://www.merrycoz.org/sgg/PP04.xhtml
“Peter Parley,” by L.H. Martin (from The Congregationalist, 14 October 1897; p. 533)

A lady writes from western New York about her handkerchief, with “The Blackberry Girl” upon it, and says it reminds her of another poem—“The world is round and like a ball”—which she thinks was in an old geography. It certainly was—in dear old Peter Parley’s, under head of “Geographical Rhymes to be repeated by the Pupil”:

The world is round, and like a ball

Seems swinging in the air.

A sky extends around it all,

And stars are shining there.

If necessary, I have no doubt that 1,000 men and women, between sixty and ninety, would stand up and recite in concert all the other verses!

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