Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1870-09-13
WHAT SHALL OUR CHILDREN
READ.

This question is pressed home to
the heart of every parent. Books,
newspapers, magazines of all sorts,
and containing, in every variety of
style, information and entertaining
stories, daily pour from the Press
and flood the the land. Some we
know to be evil, only evil - the
organs of irreligion, of gaming, or
worse,
Mere implorators of unholy suits.
1t is not difficult to distinguish
these they often wear the DEVILS
livery in the form of a fiaring but
unclean wood cut on the title-page.
The difficulty of Judging and act
ing commences when a newspaper
partly good or partly bad comes in
at the door-a weekly for instance,
in which some over-wrought sensa-
tional story is sanctifed by the
grace of high name; where one
page appeals to the passions and
tickles the fancy of stable. boy and
another has borrowed the flowing
robe and the biblical style of Doc
tor of Divinity. What can be said
OF journals whose politics are all
right but whose morality is all
wrong? Of the great Daily which
shows a vigor, vigilance and enter
prise in getting news worthy of all
praise, but debases the power of its
columns by making them mirror
with which to catch back-door re-
Elections, and thus by stealth invade
the sanctity of homes and blazon to
the world acts which were intended
for none but the All-seeing eye.
How shall we educate the minds
OF our youth to give that potent
alchemy which will enable them to
know the base from the noble at a
glance, to reject the dross and save
the gold? 1t is easy to say that
one cannot handle pitch without
being besmeared, but this old time
aphorism does not help matters
The world is full, and literature is
full, of these mischievous half-truths,
of books and newspapers that will
be read because they contain so
much that must be known, but that
will debase because they hold 80
much that is evil. Our daughters,
for instance, how can we keep them
from forming their ideas of man.
hood from the Guy barrels, the
Rochesters, the Vivian Grays of
great but unwholcsome novels? We
know Of no better rule than to have
and to express our earnest convic-
ton on the character of the infuen-
tial writings of the day, and exclude
from our homes every writer that is
half good and half bad, just as
strictly as we shut out a common
drunkard or an obscene print.
Fortunately the best books are
the cheapest, and the most accessible,
Error and fifth die. Their multitud-
inous hum is like the buzzing flies.
They never soar into the Summer
sky; they cannot outlive hard
frost. Twenty-Five cents buy any
one of Charles Dickens unmatched
stories-noveJs that have upset the
old theory of fiction; that draws
us away from the romantic, the dis
tant, and the unlikely that bids us
note the manliness and worth of
sailors and blacksmiths, of cab-driv-
ers and coal-heavers that disclose
the rarest virtues under the patched
jacket of an organ-grinder, and fill
xuIfh NJ tho dAofh nf
a vagrant singer. When death has
set his seal on the life and on the
pen of great writer; when he left
no chapter to be revised, and no
line to blot; when by common i'm
pulse the good of two continents
unite in his praise, we may know
that another light has been set to
shine on the path of virtue, another
fnger-board is giving safe direction,
another fixed star in the sky.
We cannot give safer rule than
this: To lay on our sitting-room
tables the books of men who are
dead and who died lamented. But
it is not the story alone that feeds
and forms the minds of our reading
youth. The pen of some of our
ablest and most gifted writers are
devoted to clothing facts of science
in the most attractive garb. The
wonders of geology, of chemistry,
and astronomy are brought down in
familiar language, with copious IL
Illustrations, to the comprehension of
boys and girls just entering their
teens.
We have child's histories, juvenile
books of travel and adventure; the
animal kingdom is portrayed in
graphic power; the department of
biography is profusely illustratead
there is no lack of useful and enter
tanning knowledge, diluted for chill
dren or concentrated for youth, to
furnish ample stores of information
and instruction on every topic that
the teeming age suggests. Shall we
turn from all these and give the
young and eager mind vapid and
senseless love-tales, trashy stories,
"blood and thunder" novels, instead
of the fair fruit of the tree of knowl-
edge?
Of books which aid in forming
character, none are more effective
than biographies
Olives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime"
No boy can read the biographies
of Washington, of Lincoln, of Geo.
Stephenson, of Fulton and Franklin,
without forming an honest resolu-
ton to work hard, keep out of debt,
store his mind, and keep his morals
pure. Instead of a system of edu-
cation which fits our daughters for
mere shining, let them furnish and
train their faculties in the faith that
somewhere in the future an able
man will require q cultivated wife
and cluster of bright-eyed children
ask wisdom from q well informed
~, ~ n ar NJ Y Trsbats.