The Arizona sentinel., 1888-08-04
LEARNING TO READ.
Some Sensible Ideas Presented by a We'll
 Known Educator.


 Known Educator.
 Among the many vagaries of parent al despotism, none is fuller of harm than the senseless haste in teaching children their letters. At time when the little ones are still aglow with the first ecstasies of budding life; when their senses bang eagerly upon the varied impressions that greet them in delightful confusion; when their grow Ing minds enjoy the luxury of bringing more delightful order into this, of getting the mastery over the surround tngs, of acquiring Knowledge from first sources, and of training skill and gathering in self active efforts; par ental despotism thrusts dead book in the child's face, with the peremptory order to learn to read. To the child, this order means in most cases: ''Giye up all that is delightful to you, stop thriving, stop growingr' He has just commenced to appreciate the living book, whose pages have lain open be- fore his delighted senses, and he is to exchange this now for, to him, mean ingless traces of printers ink.
 What interest can he have in read ingP For what purpose will he use reading? What pleasure will he gain from the art? Does parental despotlsm ever ask these questions when it gives the order?
 That it is occasionally moved by pity for its victims, appears from the ef- forts it makes to tighten the weari- some task, to cheat the child, as it were, into liking letters, by making them seem what they are not, viz, things of life. For this purpose parental despotism paints the hideous things on the blocks that form the child's de- light, sticks them under the pictures that have to the child all the semblance of life, sweetens them even in the primer with beautiful, enticing engrav- ings, and groups them in to mice little stories" that please the child's fancy or excite his sympathy.
 Now, while all these things unques- tionably are in their places at the right times, has parental despotism ever reflected on the harm they can do when presented improperly or at i'm proper times? This is especially true of those mice little stories." Parental despotism has abducted the child from his living world, has robbed kim of his dearest treasure, the free use of his powers. These mice little stories, with their life like pictures bring to the de- lighted vision of the child kind of mirage, in whose deceptive scene he finds a weird pleasure, to which he turns his dreamy eyes again and again in the hope of gratifying his hunger for life.
 Reading begins to fascinate him; he reads and reads to please his fancy, which by dint of overlooking or over rousing becomes diseased, morbidly active, blinding him to the beauties and pleasures of real life, and making him the eager victim of the brandy literature of Oliver Optic and his peers. If he escapes this fearful fate, he will be sure to have more regard for books as sources of knowledge and pleasure, than they deserve, and cor respondingly less for the Book of the World" and for the delights of inde- pendent investigation, and of product i've skill and work.
 Reading, of course, must be taught, but as an art, which enables us to have intercourse with persons far away in time or space, to profit by their ex- perience in our own activity, to enrich and enligbten our knowledge with theirs, to become partners in their noblest thoughts, their deepest feel ings, their highest aspirations.
 Reading should not be taught the child, therefore, before his taste for in dependent work, his appreciation of his own powers, his faith in his own resources are sufficiently strong to en- able him to resist somewhat the charms of morbid fancy; it should not be taught before he can make use of it in some way for the legitimate purpose of the art; and it should be taught him, though in rever so narrow limits, with constant reference to these pur- poses. " ". Hamilton, 4. M, tn Me Teacher.
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