The National tribune., 1884-01-10
LOYAL W0MbN'S WORK
Flash Fiction Our Boys Experience
Meeting Relief Corps News.
(fOnducted by Kato B. sher,eood.l

In no country is the taste SO great for
works of fiction as our own. Next to the news
paper the story book comes first in almost
every family. In our circulating libraries
novel reading constitutes from sixty to seventy
five per cent of the entire reading, while the
literature dealt out on the cars and from the
news-stands is almost entirely of this class
Now, it is an old Latin motto that taste is
not matter of dispute. One person goes into
ecstaces over the odor of the tube rose; another
is made deathly sick thereby. What is it7
Why, taste. One rejoices in high colors, bright
reds and orange and blues; another likes SUBJ
dued tones and soft tints What is this but
taste?
One man eats saur kraut and pronounces it
excellent; another says it is barbarous to eat
cabbages of any kind, particularly after they
have become deteriorated by fermentation.
Taste again; and so with the people we culti-
vate and the pleasures we affect and the pur-
suits we follow. Taste rules the world and its
impress upon the nation or the individual is
not changed In day-often not in a lifetime.
1t is best, then, to recognize that the taste
for fiction is genuine and must be met with
supply of that which is good, or the bad will
be taken up with an avidity that will in the
of our whole people.
1t is well understood among those who have
a knowledge of criminal circles that the sensa-
tional border tales upon which so many of our
boys and youth are fed have very much to do
with the lawlessness and general devious devil
try which prevails IN every community. In
one Of our Western cities band Of thirty boys
under recognized leader have been operating
as incipient highway robbers in a successful
plan to follow up the carrier boys of the city
papers and rob the doorsteps, selling their i'll
gotten gains on the streets.
In the same Western city gentleman was
surprised, upon returning late to his home, to
have halfgrown boy spring out upon him
from an alley and, with the cry your money
or your life, proceed to rob his pocket. After
seizpg the boy and spanking him soundly, the
gentleman inquired what he meant by such
conduct, when the boy confessed he had been
reading how another boy had got a start by
robbing gentleman of his watch and money,
and how he had afterwards grown very rich
and returned both, and how he thought he
would see if he could not do the same thing.
The trouble with trash literature is that the
boys overlook the brief moral that is sometimes
/ tackled 70 the end of long pedigree of crime
| and which seems SO paltry and pitiful after
/ the brilliant rascality and roguery that has
preceded it-and initiate only the worst, even
when there is no deliberate purpose upon the
| part of the writer to furnish a demoraizing
| book
tits not probable that the writer OF Pecks Bad
Boy literature ever intended to do more than
| to make good income for himself by stirring
up laugh. And yet insurance men tell US
that the literature In question has cost the city
of Milwaukee alone over one hundred thousand
dollars, from the riotous incendarism it has
called forth.
The whole drift of it is to teach insubordina-
| ton to superiors and radical disregard of the
| fifth commandments and its injunction of obe-
| dience 70 parents and all those in authority.
To provide our girls and boys, as well as our
men and women, with good stories, is well
worth the study of the greatest minds. There
are some stories that are written for the express
purpose of emphasizing moral truth or cor
rectiDg some great social or educational evil;
| and yet these very stories are most absorbing
! in romantic interest, and such as one would
| not readily lay down without completion.
Hawthornes Scarlet Letter" and George
Eliot's Adam Bede are, as some one has well
said, better than any sermon ever preached on
the second commandment. George MacDon-
AIDS stories are OF this class, while, as a gilt
| tcring exposition of fraud and sham. who can
! improve on Thackeray's Vanity Fair?"
/ Stories which depict healthful. happy home
life should be particularly sought out by our
family and social guardians, to be placed in the
| hands of the young. Among these are Mrs.
! CIaik's John Halifax" "a Noble Life y and
"Woman's Kingdom;" Mrs. Charles .Schoen-
berg Gotta Family" Mrs. Stoves Minister'S
Wooing" and "OldTown Folks;n George
MacDonald's annals, +" " Seaboard Parish, !" and
Robert Falconer;" Bjornsons "Ane;" Miss
Bremer's g Neighbors;" Holmes !" Elsie Ven
nor and all of Jane Austeu's works.
Better than q year of temperance lectures IS
| MacDonald's ssir Gibby;p while, if we
had our way, Dickens David Copperfeld y
should he made the legal portion of every boy
,9Jsa of ITo+
came to the tri1ing Steerforth and the encour-
agement it gives TO every poor fellow to bear
his ills brayey, since even the sorry, homeless
little David found staunch friends when wholly
cast OF, even where he had the least cause to
look for them.
WORK FOR BOYS.
A boy Of thirteen questioned business man
as to what he should do to become one himself
he said he could write, figure little knew
the first principles Of arithmetic and as much
geography as You could expect of a boy of his
age who had attended the average school, He
was bright, smart, pushing Lad, and anxious
to 60 ahead.
The reply was that the first condition to
business success was go-at-ive-ness; the second
stick at-ive-ness; that half the battle was
won by the boys sticking to one thing until
ne had made a success in it, and so proving his
ability 10 90 up higher.
natural bent Of boy should be taken into
consideration in giving him employment. 1t
should also be impressed upon him that more
, is depended upon how he does his work than
upon the kind of work done. Health and
strength should have something to do IN lead
, ing TO q choice of pursuits; then his ability
to piod and dig in spite of encouragement
1T has been we'll said that ninety-nine times
out of hundred the fathers and mothers ex-
pect an employer TO do for their sons just what
they themselves have neglected 10 do. A boy
taught obedience, promptness and self-reliance
at home will carry the same qualifications tc
an employer. 1t will be advance from the
word CO."
When General Mcpherson left the home Of
his good, widowed mother with her brood Of
. helpless children, to make his own way in the
/ world, he was taken in, very reluctantly, by
grocer firm at Green Springs, Ohio. They had
q tried so many boys and found them wanting
they shirked their work, frittered away their
time performed their tasks in half hearted
, listless way. Some of them were dishonest
others grew discouraged and returned to theil
: homes.
q But not so little Jamie Mcpherson. He wa
prompt, diligent wide awake eager, alert II
anticipate the wants of his employers. He, il
! short, made himself so invaluable to the com
+. fort of the firm that they began to fear the,
might lose him. The senior member tool
him into his family, treated him in all re
spects as son, gave him opportunities at school
n and wound up by sending him to West Point