Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1867-10-18
BOOKS or FICTION FOR CHILL
DREE.


The London Qaart ,lg e 80 remarks
The MUD of child. = says wise thinker,
it Ike the acorn. its powers are folded up,
they do not yet appear, bus they are all
there. The memory, the invention, the
feeling Of right and wrong, are az in his
mind, even Of an infant just born. One BY
one they awake His imaginatinn-on Of
the earliest powers that awakens within him,
even before he hos pasted through the nlys-
teries Of pap and found out that being
naughty differs from being good-must be
fed And fed it wiz be; either on the
make believe talk Of his sister Mary nursing
her dol, the idle stories Of Betsey the nurse
maid when he is naughty about the "bogey"
and the black man who carries off bad
boys; or about the golden fairy who is to
give him tafey and gingerbread-wben he
Is good. BY and by, as he grows older. his
sister Mary reads to him, and at last he
learns to read for himself, the charming adj
ventures Of the 'Foz apIthe Grow, 'Bil-
ly-goat GruF ''Sinbad the Sailor, or Dia-
monds aud Pearls the delicious history Of
Pass in Boots, the tragedy OF Blue
Beard, Or the heroic drama CT Jack the
Giant-kller"
But whichever Of these, or hundred
other such deGgh, al pages, It be, his faith
is bolndiess HapPiest Of HoTtals, for
time at least, ho can believe a he reads
with The one happy proviso that if it is not
tue. it ought to be, ay, and is, because his
sister says so. While he is absorbed in the
misfo4tuncs Of the Tin Soldier. or the
Ugly Duck, the breaI asst bc'l Is unheard,
and dinner UNDECIDED; he is feasting in
DroamlaHd, on STIR about in the Giants Cas-
tie, or those famous cheeze-eakes Of Queen
Scheherezada, whose vital charm was pep
por. Eotthat be was forgotful Of fact, even
while in the full pursuitof fiction Indeed,
he is Away burning for facts He shes to
know what glass is, where Robinson Crusoe
was buried, how much gold il kes to make
the inside Of a watch why the sun sets later
in June than in December, what thunder is,
ifthe end of the rainbow touches the ground
why the firing oifa cannon 3no3 made man
deaf, what sag0 Is, and a thousand other
things, which papa NOT being a walking en-
cyciopGdia, Is not always ready to tell him
And whatever answer he can obtain be is
ready to believe implicitly, as long as he is
dealt fairly with
Yer. though, St George and the Dragon
All Baba and Robson Crusoe, are in one
sense as true to him as the history Of Eng
land there are shades and degrees of relief
in his own mind both as regards the domains
Of fact and fiction, which he cannot perhaps
define. and of which be Is scarcely sensible,
yet on which be uueo. scioas acts; setting
each narrative or story, tale or fable, TO
nance or chronicle, in its own due place,
and giving to each lis owa royal favor aud
approval as good, bad or Indifferent. A
child 10 good sound health IS iusatiably lii-
Gus, bis taiTst for fiction Of one shape or
other is quenchless, and if he never asks
guas ions, and cares nothing for Jack and
the Beanstalk" OF the lad who went to the
No IN Wind, there is screw loose some
whe OF other he Is in morbid, unhealthy
sta, OF body or mind. probably both; his
natural growth and tastes as ea,d are
becoming stuntel and diseased eoFcad into
some narrow, petty channel where igno-
rance or bigotry vi soon blot out the fresh
ness, grace and Light, that are childhood
most precious possessions