A visit to the elephant

"A visit to the elephant" by Mary Ann Hedge is a didactic children's book written in the early 19th century. Framed by affectionate domestic scenes and gentle Christian reflection, it uses a family outing to a menagerie—and a kindly grandfather’s memories of India—to teach natural history, moral lessons, and wonder at creation, with the elephant as its central subject.

The opening of the book introduces Mr. Elmer, a benevolent retiree, and his faithful servant Alan, whose lifelong bond began in a Scottish cottage and deepened during years in India. After a stormy night, a handbill for a nearby menagerie prompts Mr. Elmer to collect his grandchildren—Harry, Joanna, and little Ellen—from their mother, Mrs. Monson, and take them to see the elephant. At the show he explains the animal’s features, diet, bathing, docility, and strength, praising the Creator and adding vivid anecdotes from India; afterward, over dinner, he describes how elephants are captured and tamed, the perilous Abyssinian hunts, and the pomp of Asian courts with war elephants and royal processions. A visit to his sketchbook widens the lesson to ivory, Solomon’s throne, the Mogul’s peacock throne, and the animal’s sensitivity to music, while Mr. and Mrs. Monson draw gentle morals about piety, gratitude, and kindness to animals. The section closes the next morning with more talk of useful elephant labor and a new thread on serpents, as Mr. Elmer begins describing the beautiful, harmless boiga.