Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-08-13
What DO Your Chlldren Rend 2

What DO Your Children Read?
| EDITORS CHRONICLE: The above ques.
| ton is put TO the parents of Knoxville, and
with the hope that it may lead them
to examine into the class of literature that
delights the minds of their children. Does
yellow back trash find its way into your
house? Do your children during leisure
hours visit the book stores and while away
their time reading Beadle's and Monroes
novels? If not these do they eagerly watch
for each number of some fascinating week.
ly, and never cease until they have found
what became of that brave hero or lovely
heroine in some thrilling romance which
the publishers declare has been purchased
at greater expense than any story which
has yet come before the American people?
Go where you Will on our principal streets
and you will almost invariably find boys
greedily devouring this poisonous litera-
ture. They lose all taste for anything that
will ennoble, elevate and enrich the mind,
and grow up with their heads full of ro-
mantle ideas of running away to sea or 60
ing out on the plains to fight Indians.
History is a bore to them and so is every
other kind of literature which does not
run on in strain of romantic excitement.
Who is to blame for this waste of
time and talent? Most assuredly the
parents of the children who do not
inculcate the love a higher order
of reading into the young mind. They
should positively forbid any such trash to
be brought into the house, andsee that the
children have books that will not only
amuse but instruct and elevate, Oh, how
careful parents should be that the first i'm
pressions are for good Here is the great
secret OF all greatness. Make the right
kind of impressions on the minds of chill
n Nuh al p a md nd
you need have no fears of their bringing
reproach or disgrace on your name. Put
into their hands, just as soon as they show
taste for reading, such books as will
have a tendency TO give them love
for truth and not for fiction. We
do not condemn all novels, by no means,
but on the contrary, we think that such
fiction as our standard authors have pro-
duced will have more tendency to good
than evil. Scott Dickens, Bulwer, and
many other authors, have greatly bene-
fitted mankind by their productions, and
their names will never cease to be house
hold words. Their books will be read as
long as people have any taste at all for lit
erature We do, however, protest against
cheap, trashy literature in cUery shape, be-
ing allowed in the hands of children. 1t
corrupts their minds and makes them
drones. They will never be of any good
to themselves or any one else until they
see UnaU uney HluSG acquire real hnOWleuSe,
and not fill their brain with poisonous i'm
aginations.
Not only are parents to blame for the
evils which come from this poison, but it
is question for booksellers themselves.
Those who frown down rumsellers and
all other men who sell what they think is
injurious to the body, and who pretend to
be such friends of education, do you feel
conscientious in selling this demoralizing
literature right over the same counter with
the Scriptures and text books, when you
must be conscious of the bad effect it is
having on the young?
1t is greatly to be regretted that every
where there is such a demand for cheap
books-romances and novels that only in
terest in the plot and narrative-and it is
high time something was said about it
more than is. People don't want anything
better, and hence the high price for litera-
ture that is worth reading. 1t is ques.
ton that ought to be considered by every
| thinking man and woman of the city.
| Shall your children grow up in ignorance
| by reading trashy books, or shall they have
the advantage of books that will store
their minds with useful knowledge that
will make them good citizens and orna-
ments to society? ROLAND.