Jesus Loves The Little Children: A Song History

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"Jesus Loves the Little Children" is the refrain of a children's hymn by C. Herbert Woolston (1856–1927), a Baptist minister, sung to the melody of George F. Root's Civil War song "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!"[1][2] Root's song, subtitled "The Prisoner's Hope," was issued as sheet music in Chicago by Root & Cady in 1864.[3] Sources differ slightly on when Woolston's words appeared: Hymnary.org dates them to 1912, while Discipleship Ministries places the first printing in The Gospel Message, No. 3 (Philadelphia, 1913).[1][2] A scan of that 1913 Hall-Mack Company songbook shows the hymn as number 103, with the words credited to Woolston and the music to Root.[4]

Engraving of a cottage schoolroom full of young children while the teacher is away, the door open to a garden path

After A. Rankley, The Dame's Absence, wood engraving from the Illustrated London News, 1857. A roomful of village schoolchildren, shown for the children of the hymn; it has no connection to the hymn.

According to Discipleship Ministries, Woolston led East Baptist Church in Philadelphia for four decades, from 1887 until his death, and also practiced sleight of hand, publishing books of object lessons built around magic tricks.[2] The same source says his song originally had three stanzas, but within a few years editors were printing the refrain alone.[2] The refrain's original wording names children by skin color, and hymnals have revised that line in various ways, among them The Baptist Hymnal of 1991.[2] The article suggests that the song's worldwide outlook may reflect the foreign-missions movement of the early twentieth century, and places the refrain, in the United States, probably second only to "Jesus Loves Me."[2]

The song is one of those in Mike Anderson's Sunday Songs For Kids, where it is set in DAD tuning; this 52-page Fingers Of Steel book is built mainly around Christian children's songs, presenting each first in standard notation with its opening verse and then with several verses and chords for playing along.[5]

Our book that contains the song "Jesus Loves The Little Children"

Sources

  1. Hymnary.org: "Jesus Loves the Little Children".
  2. Discipleship Ministries: "History of Hymns: 'Jesus Loves the Little Children'".
  3. Internet Archive (Gaylord Music Library, Washington University in St. Louis): "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!: The Prisoner's Hope" (1864).
  4. Internet Archive: "The Gospel Message: No. 3" (Hall-Mack Co., 1913).
  5. Fingers Of Steel: "Mike Anderson, Sunday Songs For Kids".
  6. Image: After A. Rankley, The Dame's Absence, wood engraving from the Illustrated London News, 1857. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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