The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1882-03-03
HIGH SCHOOL ESSAY.
"Are the characters la S,tndaQ-SchOol
books 7atuTdl?
MISS ANNIE ADAMsON.


But very small proportion of the
books we read nowadays have .heir
characters taken from real life, espe-
cially novels, such as are written for
amusement. But l think that books
written for moral improvement should
have their characters represented like
those in real life, or peoplein trying to
be like them would try to reach i'm
possibilities.
The so-called Sunday-school books,
at least those 1 have read, which in
clude all kinds and cast quantities,
seem to me to have the most unnatural
characters of any books that have
come under my notice, and such views
are not shared by me alone.
Only short time ago, reviewer, in
speaking of a book recently published
by Harper Brothers, entitled, mine
teen beautiful years." says: "We felt
disappointed when we learned that it
was memoir, for there came to us a
vivid remembrance of childhood
days, when our Sunday reading was
confined to Sunday-School books, full
of sickly children, who lived unnatural
precocious lives, for brief period of
years, and then left disconsolate pa
rents to parade their grief in stupid
book, designed for the especial annoy
ance of little children.
What girl could ever hope to reach
the angelic perfection of the good girl
of the Sunday-SchOol book, with moth
ing to do but distribute tracts and
soap to the heathen?"
The old style Sunday.School books,
such as the Puritan children used to
read, generally had two prominent
characters: A good girl, who always
had place for everything, and bad
girl, who wouldn't put anything away,
but just kept everything lying around
handy. The good girl knit, learned
hymns, and cut up her clothes for poor
Mrs. Smiths sick baby. The bad girl
wouldn't knit, let the kitten tangle up
her yarn, and hum sold Dan Tucker"
The good girl took the consumption,
and lived long time, working book
marks, knitting socks for bare feet
giving her friends advice and her rela.
tives her old clothes, as she was going
to be an angel, while the bad girl lived
and married a widower with thirteen
or fourteen children.
| Nowadays the girl heroines are
prodigies of learning, don't know what
a knitting needle is, and, instead of
learning, "Lord, teach me how to pray
and teach me to love it, too" sing en-
Enthusiastically, | am ignorant of these
things as well as the rest"
| The heroine depends on a few good
works, few well distributed notices
generally has two beaus-a rich one
who has a wicked heart, and whom
she feels convinced she should devote
her life to, from a sense of duty, and
make his redemption sure; and poor
but pious one, who adoreS her and she
likes him, but then it is so hard fol
the rich one to get into heaven. She
has a conflict between love and duty
prays over it, gets up and marries the
rich one, works a motto for the poo
, one, "All this have I done for thee,
. and lives happy forever after.
The poor young man becomes a mis-
sionary, gets eaten up by the savage;
and sends her his bible and a lock Q
: his hair, which she keeps to show t
: her children on rainy Sundays, Will
she tells them long stories with MOI
ais, and pays them two cents per thoul