The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-07-08
READING OF CHILDHOOD.

man is known by the company he
keeps. Taking this old adage as a cue,
Miss Edith Dickinson has written a
most interesting article in Lippincotts
on the early reading of literary men,
She feels that biographers make Sc
rious mistake in emitting to notice the
character of the books selected by writ
ers in their early years. She pertinently
remarks that as lovers of books never
come to anything more than super
fetal acquaintance until they have
learned each others likes and dislikes,
SO we feel our comprehension of an
author greatly assisted by knowing the
books of which he was fond.
Mr.. Hamperton found it hard to read
Dickens, and Balzac and George Eliot
were taken up only as study. Scott
and Thackeray were his two favorites
in early life, while Byron, Shelly, Keats,
Montaigne, Emerson and Rusk1n capt1-
waited him in later years. Robert Louis
Stevenson speaks of Montaigne as in
fluencing his early thoughts, and that
Shakespeare served him best of ALL |
Pilgrims Progress, the Gospel accord |
ing to st. Mathew, and the Meditations
of Marcus Aurelius were among the
books that shaped the versatile course
of this author. With John Ruskin, Rog- |
-ers' Italy, illustrated by Turner, 1n1u- |
enced the childish mind in a marked
degree. During the week days he read
Pope's Homer and Scott's novels aloud
to his mother, and on Sundays substi- |
tuted Robinson Crusoe and the Pill |
grim's Progress. Ruskin says: MY |
mother forced me to learn long chap
tiers of the Bible by heart, and to that
discipline 1 owe the best part of my
taste in literature"
One can we'll believe that Robinson
Crusoe was the childish idol of H. Rider
Haggard. Next to the Arabian Nights
it was his favorite The childish mind
of John Stuart Mills was treated much
after the manner of stufing Thanks
giving turkey. The boy was reading
Greek at three, and before he was eight
years old he was perusing Anabasis,
Herodotus, the dialogues of Plato and
the historical works of Robertson, Glib
bon, Hume and others.
Though Miss Dickinsons review of
these early literary tastes is interesting
as a key to the inspiration of literary
workers, it also has food for thought
for the fathers and mothers who are in
a position to, in a measure, shape the
course of youthful minds. 1t is quite as
much an abuse for parents to map out
a certain line of reading for children,
and impress upon them that those books
shall be read and no others, as it is to
allow the child to pick among the nu-
books of the present day to suit :
the sweet will. 1t is as sad sight to
see the child kept constantly pouring
over Sunday school stories as it is to
have the young mind crammed with a
class of literature that is entirely be- =
yond its reach. The people of today
have much wider variety to select
from, and there is no reason in the
world why the boy or girl should not
be furnished with healthful reading :
matter of the character that seems to
suit the fancy. :
If history seems to appease the youth L
Jul appetite, give the child historical a
works that come within the horizon of
is understanding. Thou shall" and {
thou shall not" has done more to help Z
,ut cheap novel writer's than it has to
shape the literary tastes of
he youth of the present generation.