Give them proper books. A reading people will soon become a thinking people, and a thinking people must soon become a great people. It will be worth more to him than all your hoarded gold and silver. Dear Reader, be independent and make up your mind what is best for you to read, and read it. Master a few good books.
Life is short and books are many.
Instead of having your mind a garret crowded with rubbish, make it a parlor of rich furniture, beautifully arranged, in which you would not be ashamed to have the whole world enter. But I have one book worth more than all called the Bible, and that is a book of blank notes. The parent who lives for his children's souls, will often consider what other books are most likely to prepare his little ones, for prizing aright that Book of Books, and make that object the pole star of his endeavors. Every book has a moral expression, though as in the human face, it may not be easy to say what it consists in. We may take up some exquisite poem or story, with no distinctly religious bearing and feel that it is religious.