The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-04-17
CHILDREN'S BOOKS.
Text Of the Paper Read by
Mrs. Alice May SCudder
Before SoroSiS.
IMPROPER NURSERY TALES,
Many of Them Are False Through
and Through and Impossible
Of Belief.

0HOulu Jher6 De dHybAhuS III Liz
ture which is not or could not be trueg' was
proposed by Mrs. Carrie Stow Wait and de-
bated ON the negative by Mrs. Alice May
Scudder.
Mrs. Scudderss paper has aroused much
interest in the subject The text OF it fol-
lows:
Books and stories largely shape the fu-
ture of our children, for they feed the intel
lect and the soul; hence a good mother will
know every book her child reads, just as she
will know about the food that is taken by
her little one.
Great mischief has been wrought by al
lowing children to read at random, or feast
ON improper nursery tales.
To ilustrate:-I know a dear little girl
who began to display great nervousness; an
unexpected noise would startle her, and she
would glance about as If she thought some
wild animal were about to spring out upon
her. When the shades of night fell she
would at once demand alight, not seeming
to dare to sit in the deepening twilight, even
with here mother nearby, and later when
her nurse would take her to her room the
trouble increased, for she would resort to al
most any measure to bring her nurse back
into the room. She would pinch her baby
brother to make him cry. She would scratch
his little face to rouse him up, and thus Sc
cure the presence of some one with a light.
Night after night this was repeated until at
last in despair the nurse reported 1t to the
parents.
How to account for it, no one knew, until
at last some one suggested that perhaps the
came from reading fairy tales, and just that
it proved to be. That dear, sensitive little
child was haunted day and night with the
faces and forms of those ugly egres she had
read of in the Red, blue and green fairy
books" of Andrew Lang. She had looked at
those monsters of ugiiness until in the dark
ness every inch of the room seemed peopied
with grinning monsters. She had gone with
Alice into wonderland, where hideeus cats
with giaring eyes and distended jaws sat in
the branches of the trees ready to spring
oat. Let me read you a description from
one of the tales familiar to her. 1t is a Rus
sian fairy story called King Kojata, where
a satanic1ooking being is in the water, hold
ing on with a death clutch to a mans long
beard. Perhaps these words may convey
some idea of the picture:-"Only an awful
face looked up from the bottom OF the well,
with two great green eyes, glowing ike
emefalds, and a wide mouth reaching from
ear to ear, showing two rows OF cleaning
white teeth, and the kings beard was held
not by mortal hands, but by W o claws"
The widest nightmare from mince pies
could not terribly more than that.
IMAGINARY VOLTS IA
Have you no recollections after reading
"Red Riding Hood, " of seeing an imaginary
VOLTS head, decorated with ~grandmaas cap,
on the pillow of your bed, and did yoH not
almost expect to near the words, why,
granny, how large your teeth are" with the
reply. tAH the better with which to eat you
| up.n By nature / am excessively practical,
| and yet + car look back and see myself as a
child, standing in my robe de mutt, pleading
at one time a tooth ache and at another an
L oo, on1,o in foor r xuac not 1f all particular
| where the pain was located SO long as |
| could hear my mothers voice saying, well,
| come and Jump in my bed and l have
| sometimes thought | should never want
| more of a heaven than I experienced in those
| early days, when l was cuddled up warm
| and safe in mothers loving keeping.
Silly child, do you say! yes, idlotlc, II you
| so desire to style it, yet true, nevertheless; SO
| true that the horrors of those nights are in
| my remembrance today, and all because my
imagination was misguided by foolish pic
tua es and tales. !.
Imagination is one thing, but a distorted
| one is quite another.
But some one may say, "Butall fairy tales
are not Of this character, some are beautiful
| teaching the children of nature while point
| ing q moral.n / am willing to admit that
| here and there are a few of this style, but as
our questions are not dealing with the ex-
ceptions, but rather with the whole field,
l aIHl ~ we dttl1O bch Jul ola xAfooPt 1Ah
son or Grimm, but must have all or none, |
| say with frmness that If we must accept all
| the hideous and wicked tales which are I'M
| true, in order to keep q few which are COM
| paratively harmless, then let us sweep them
| all out, and the sooner they go the better.
But I hear another exclaiming, But
what about Santa Claus? You wouldn't ex-
| terminate dear old Santa, would youg' Yes,
harness up his RENDERS and let him go, too,
for we can't keep him, because he is unreal.
l know some of you will mourn, but !! have
not felt quite the affection for him since |
had one Of my primary class nearly go
into fits at d Christmas entertainment when
| the old gentleman appeared. The
| little fellow shook from head
| to foot, and clutched me with a drowning
mans grip. No words to the effect that he
was good old Santa, with pretty boxes full Of
| candy,s had any influence with the child,
| and then I sat for more than an hour Will
half a hundred eyes upon me. not Knowing
what he would do next. Any effort to re-