The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1880-10-28


1t is very hard for boys and girls be-
tween ten and twenty to believe what
older people tell them concerning the
selection of reading matter. If a book
is interesting, exciting, thrilling, the
young folks want to read it. They Ike
to feel their hair stand on end at the
hair breadth escapes of the hero, and
their nerves Jingle to the ends of their
fingers at his exploits, and their faces
burn with passionate sympathy in his
tribulations-an what harm is their in
it? Let us see what harm there MAJ
be- You know very well that a child
fed on candy and cake and sweetmeats
soon loses all healthy appetite for nu-
tritious food; his teeth grow black and
crumble away, his stomach becomes
deranged, his breath offensive, and the
whole physical and mental organization
is dwarted and injured. When he
grows older he will crave spices and
tobacco and alcohol to stimulate his
abnormal appetite and give pungency
to tasteless though healthfd food No
man who grows up from such childhood
is going to have the first positions of
honor and trust and usefulness in the
community where he lives. The men
who hold those positions were fed with
milk and bread and meat when they
were young, and not with trash.
Now, the mind like the body grows
by what it feeds upon. The girl who
fills her brain with silly, sentimental,
love-sick stories, grows up into silly,
sentimental, lackadaisical woman. use
less for all the noble and substantial
work of life. The boy who feeds on
sensational newspapers and exciting
novels has no intellectual muscle, no
commanding will to make his way in
the world. Then aside from the
facilitating effect of such reading, the
mind is poisoned by impure associations.
These thrilling stories have always
murder or theft, or lying or knavery.
as an integral part of their tissue, and
boys while reading them live in the
companionship of men and women, of
boys and girls, with whom they would
be ashamed to be seen conversing,
whom they would never think of in
viting to their houses and introducing
to their friends, and whose very names
they would not mention in polite
society as associates and equals. Every
book that one reads, no less than every
dinner that one eats, becomes part and
parcel of the individual, and we can no
more read without injury an unwhOl-
some book or periodical than we can eat
tainted meat and not suffer thereby.
Just as there are everywhere stores
full of candy and cake, and liquor and
tobacco and spices, SO there are every
where books, newspapers. magazines
full of the verieSt Trash. and Astounding
in every thing boys and girls should
not read. And Just as the healthful
stomach, passing all these pernicious
habits, will choose sound aliment, so
the healthful mind will reject the I'M
wholesome literature current every
where, and select such only as is in
trinscially good.
The other day we picked up popu-
lar juvenile weekly, and presently
found ourself knee-deep in slang. over
our head in vulgar allusion and in the
midst of a low-lived metropolitan
crowd, where cock-fights dog-lights and
man-fights were the condiments offered
to whet the appetite for reading; and
vet we know families where that paper
is regularly taken. Do the parents read
it? Do they know what company their
children are keeping?
But, says the young inquirer, what
shall we read, and how shall we know
if books are suitable? Read such books
as give you valuable information; his
tories, travels and those works of fiction
that are approved by people of correct
judgment Our leading magazines con-
tain vast amount of reading, interest
ing alike to young and old. Do not
read what renders distasteful the ordi-
nary duties of life, or renders vice at
tractive, or makes you long for an inn
possible and romantic career. Scott,
Cooper, Washington Irving, will never
bring you into impure associations; and
a correct taste, once formed and care
fully consulted, will enable you to select
the good and eschew the pernicious.-
Laura E. Lyman, ira Home Interests.