The Portland daily press., 1875-10-08
Titerature for Rows and Girls.

Those who would give children Tor daily
diet only dry crusts, well-picked BONES ana
slops would be hooted at as barbarans-
and rightly too. Then what can be said OF the
kindly and respectable people who provide for
their youns charges mental food which cor
responds to the bones, the crusts and the slops?
The quality of the literature specially prepared
for boys and girls in their early teens is not
more remarkable than its quantity. 1t is too
often fiabby, gushing and pretentious. 1t at
tempts muscle and ends in mush; it adorns the
tale at the expense of the morals, and is as far
below the fine old English models as it we'll
can be. There's little that is rich, strong and
healthy about it, and yet it is the stuff outside
textbooks, that chiefly helps to make the
brains of school boys aad girls between the
ages of twelve and sixteen. When the supply
fails the young people are naturally not slow to
take up those novels which are even more weak
andI gushing. There is scarcely such thing
as vital and systematic instruction in Engl sh
literature in home and school. Readers GER
tainly do not offer it, and the average teacher
appears to take very little interest ia it. Even
in the old and thorough schools, the course OF
reading-if there be one-is apt to be pursued
in a perfunctory fashion which leaves the
graduate without any quickening desire to
seek for himself the literary treasures OF the
world Young Americans of the better class
have, as rule, bright minds and docile tastes
yet the usual reading matter of an unpleas-
anty large number of young men and women
is made up of sensational novels, and the "en-
tertaining things"-fashions and murders
among them-ln the daily newspaper. They
are utterly ignorant as to the real riches of
English writings; it is no wonder that their
minds SO quickly take on the conventional
commonplace tone.
1t is useless to infict upon young people
daily compulsory stint of dry history and drier
essay. The teacher who is really wise and ac-
complished understands very well how to
awaken and to train an active and delighted in
terest in the best thought and the noblest liter
airy manner. If nothing but novel appeals at
present to the young girls capacity, give her a
novel; but let it be a standard in conception
and execution. 1.-THE Newcomes,' if rather
more worldly, is assuredly sweeter aud
healthier tonic than The Wide, Wide World''
or even the fashionable Boston Juveniles"
There is not much danger of surfeiting chill
dren with writing too old for them; every
teacher who knows his business thoroughly
knows how the fields Of history may be made
to blossom under young eyes; how childish i'm
aginatOns take fire between the flint of motive
and the steel of action when both are brilliant
ly rehearsed; and how even the bones of infer
ence and deduction are made lively by eager
young minds Girls and boys who are not stu
pid naturally delight in splendid description, in
good sense, and in simple English. If, instead
of all this, they learn to love a diet of crusts
and Stops, it shows willful carelessness on the
part of friends and teachers.-NeD York Tri-
bune.