The weekly echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1868-1876, 1876-05-18
yUHENTLE ETTERATURE.
Ighas chadren ReB and may Not Read
With Profit

will be engulGed in sea Of immortality
which it will create.
Childhood Is the age Of imagination.
At no time during life i the mind 30
ready to believe all that the ears hear,
and st no time Is It possible for such
vivid pictures to be created in the mind
by outside influences. We laugh at the
tale of Jack and the Bean-staIkD now,
but which Of Us has not had his own
Jack, whom he firmly believed in, and
his own bean-stalk Of the proper stout
mess and strength to support Jack as he
climbed up? All, me what q time It
was when there were 20 many kings and
queens, fairies and giants; and when
those terrible spooks, too, which never
we're seen, were always coming after you
in the dark places, although they were
80 shy Of light and gEown-up people, and
never had any power underneath thebed-
clothes!
Nature being most impartial in her
gifts, and graciously best0wing them
quite iFrespectively Of the worldly posi-
ton Of the recipient, blesses nearly all
children, rich and poor, with vivid fancies.
This may be assured in a dozen ways.
Think how easily children are amused by
a tale of adventure of the widest and
most primitive kind. Examine the Rur-
sery rhymes and see what tax they are
upon the powersof credulity and imagina-
ten.
1t is not surprising to find this imag-
NATIVE power coming to the surface,
whatever station of life child may be in.
If he has to toll all day and then to 90
home, where he has nothing to do except
to keep himself out Of the way-ever
difficult feat for Children-What wonder
that he turns to reading as an easy and
available form of amusement Give him
a fve-cent periodical, and he can at once
Danish himself into realms of gardens,
mountains, palaces, forests, caverns Of
jeWels-Of COLLINS, genii, kings, princesses
and dragons. To meet him, there has
rushed into the market host of publiCa-
tions which he devours with only too
great an ayidity. AS well to tell him not
to eat, not to laugh, or not to persPire, as
not to read them. The desire is as firmly
fixed in his physical construction as his
heart or his liver. Read he mnat, read
he will; and he reads what is closest at
hand, and most within his means, "The
Bandit of the Prairies, +" " The Boy High
Wayman," "Tom Careless, the Boy Pr
rate" and similar garbage he reads by
the hundredweight, to the depreciation of
his mind and morals.
The mischief of these periodicals lies
in their extreme badness. They are
thoroughly badly written, careless, clap
trap, Catch-penny, commonplace tales.
This is sufficient to condemn them,
though they have frequentlymuch worse
faults. 1t is enough that the good young
men are always killing some one, and
then wanting some young lady to " fly"
with them, and that the bad young men
are always assembling, or grinding their
teeth as if they would reduce them to
powder. The effect of this trash (nO
matter how innOHuous in itself) on the
minds of the impressiOnable must be
bad.
It may be worth while, before con-
Guiding, to mention q remedy which we
have tried with some considerable sue
cess. Has it occurred to you, reader,
that the same facilities which permit
journals Of the " Boy Brigand" class to
Be issued at five cents week, also enable
some Of our most famous literary ere
ations to be brought out at similarly low
prices? II has occurred, at any rate, to
many publishers, and the result is the
cheap editions Of some Of the best stand
ard works Of fiction, a. also many Of our
most famous poets works, which may be
seen at numerous book-stalls and stores.
Should our lads be LEFT 70 waste their
money ON works Of the z Boy Brigand +"
class, which are always extravagantly
dear in comparison TO those Of which we
have spoken? II would Be a quarter
wen laid out to buy one Of the copies
alluded to, and give il 70 any lad you