The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1890-04-25
Children'S Reading.

agencies that form character, t
! question must often be suggeste
what shall my children read.
| Children in regard to their d
: sire and capacity for reading ha
been divided into three classes.
First, those children, wi
from absence of proper encou
agement, or proper books, or bot
seem to have no taste for readin
atall. Second, those who are al
parently passive in the matter, C;
pable of enjoying a good boo
when it comes to them, but neitI
Ell craving nor searching for book
Third, those who greedily devou
every scrap of printed matter tha
falls in their way; children VIII
must read at all hazards and
they cannot get good books, vii
read bad ones.
with the first class of children
the one thing needful is the quick
ening influence of good books un
der judicious directions.
With the second class the need
is simply slight encouragement
and abundant opportunity.
"Our third class is the danger.
GUS one at all times, and the one
that requires the greatest delicacy
in handling"
These classes are to be careful
ly Disseminated and dealt with
accordingly. Children are i'm
pressed and have their characters
formed earlier than we think and
are capable of enjoying good
books at a very early age ana the
wise parent will take advantage of
this early stage to form in them
the habit of reading and a taste for
good books, habit and taste
which will afford them much real
pleasure and profit whatever may
be their location and position in
life.
"Give the children taste of the
treasure locked up in the great
of books and you will
be both surprised and delighted
with he-fesults, even If you meas
IRE them from the low utilitarian
standpoint of immediate returns.
Children delight naturally in
lotion, they have ready ear and
heart for the marvellous and excit-
ing. This is to be checked, guided,
purified. This natural taste for
lotion cannot be rudely destroyed,
nor is it to be displaced by the
method "of crowdlng the young to
closely in the study of science, aud
he examination of bare facts" Of.
ate years there has been set up
n the newspaper, the periodicals,
md the schools, new God, the
Moloch Of knowledge, as remorse-
ess as his prototype at Carthage
3nd certainly more brazen. In
,ull conformity with the doctrines
If this new faith, writers who
nave come to regard our unhappy
children pretty much as butchers
.egard those delightful Straburg
geese, have flooded the market
With books, generally in the guise
If stories, whose sole purpose is
o stuff our young people with
every conceivable branch of knowl-
edge under the sun.
While the examining the child
zen with knowledge and scientific
acts is to be guarded, yet it is not
o be wholly ignored. The enter
aiming and instructive ought to
be combined. To deal out to them
he marvellous is to aggregate a
natural tendency already too
strong. We deprecate much Of
literature in circulation for child
ZEN, as too exciting and marvel
2us on the one hand, and another
class on the other hand is too
anne, sickly sentimental, made up
If goody, goody stories which
form the sum of many of the peri
2dicals published for children.
This literature sickens their taste
and destroys all relish for instruc-
tive and profitable reading.
Harper's Bazaar has these sug-
gestive hints ON this subject:
ga very grave matter, indeed,
has become the quality of the
reading furnished to our young
people. In families where news
papers enter freely, even the cas-
uaI reader who takes them up and
chances them over carelessly can
not fail to get a knowledge of the
world that if it does no harm does
no good either. There are fami-
lies, indeed, where the children
are allowed certain columns of
single paper only, but such prohi-
bition is often as dangerous as its
A notion prevails in
many minds that the young must
have reading furnished to them