Parents must teach sound principles to their children on this subject . They must show them the evils attending the reading of the fashionable novels of the day, and other vicious works of the lighter order. This can be done.
Nothing is more practicable.
It will do more. It will point to authentic facts, and show what is more to the purpose than all the theories we may have on this subject, that many a youth has had his imagination influenced by these vicious novels, and that, through their influence, he has been ruined, temporarily and eternally. Children have a conscience in relation to this matter, and that conscience can be reached, if the proper means are employed. I saw this position verified a few days since. A young lady of my acquaintance had read one of the most objectionable of Eugene Sue's novels, and although she acknowledged there were some features in the work from which the eye of virtue turned away in pain, yet, on the whole, she thought it might be safely read by those whose principles were firmly established , and in that class she ranked herself.