“Twenty froggies went to school…”

This page from the Ames, Iowa Historical Society website reproduces two poems from the Rev. Henry Davenport Northrop’s Excelsior Writer and Speaker (Atlanta: J. L. Nichols & Co, 1899): Sidney Dayre’s “The Story of an Apple” (about the importance of sharing) and “The Twenty Frogs!”(about the value of an education). (There is also a picture of a fetching lass exhibiting a goodly amount of ankle while holding aloft a bunch of cherries with the caption: “Cherry ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry, / Full and fair ones–come and buy!” This seems rather suggestive, and not something one would expect to find in a book aimed at children. It’s unclear what connection there is between the photograph and Rev. Northrop’s text.)