The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-02-13
CHILDREN'S BOOKS.
Miss Agnes RepDlier Sug-
gests the Reform of Sum
day School Libraries.
CHANCE. FOR HEALTHY WRITERS
The Wishy- Washy Type Of Book
Played Out-A Good Word
for the Fairies.
CHANCE. FOR HEALTHY WRITERS

Sunday School libraries have needed
reforming ever since they were started.
Probably they will get it now that those
in high authority have taken up the mat
ter, says Miss Agnes Repplier, in a re-
cent "Scribner's', on Sunday School liter
ature, and she points out the melancholy
and distressing effect such books have on
young minds.
AS she says, the majority of them
are written of crippled lads, consumptive
mothers, angelic little girls with spinal
complaint, inidel fathers, lingering death
beds. famished families, Innocent con-
victs, prosecuted school boys, and friend
less children wrongfully accused of theft.
These have held their own m%ournfully
for years."
Now, what is the use of furnishing
pictures of the most lamentable side of
life to young minds? The plan doesn't
coerce charity. For it is those who have
brightness in their thoughts and lives
that turn philanthropist, because they
shiver at the comparison between their
atmosphere and that of the more I'M
fortunate. If a tree was fed by blight and
rust and sleet it could not bloom and bear
fruit. Neither can a mind on
the regular Sunday School literature diet.
1t needs the sunshine of natural enjoy
ment to bring it to foliage.
That every child. except the 'goody-
goody' variety. who goes with the
'wishy-washy' type of book, will beg
to be let OFF from Sunday School litera-
ture is well known. Every mother will
confess it. And don't blame the child
for 1t. Don't contend with him or her
for not caring for the books HI are
furnished. The child's min is. normal.
1t doesn't want to be fed with such bad
nour1shment. It can't digest it. 1t
knows that life is filed with. activity
and delight and adventure and virtue
rewarded and it wants to hear about
these. And it shout get these.
The reform should start in the Sunday
School libraries. A committee should
see to it thht delightful volumes are
bought; books of travel and history
wildly told, of animals, the Simplest Of
the master novels, of fine, gossipy fic-
ton about healthy boys and girls. Such
stories as Mrs. Wells Champney writes
and Molly Eliot Seawell, and Thompson
and Stockton and Nelson Page and Uncle
Blanchard.
There does come another sid to the
question, that good, active books for
girls from eleven to fifteen are sadly
wanted; have heard from publishers
OF chiidren's stories that there is an open
NEG Tor stirring tales for girls. All little
maidens of the gentler sex do not care
Tor Knitting lessons and new games to
teach the pussy cat, etc. These little girls
are nving a free, blood-circulating. happy
existence, and they want to read about
what they are doing.
" the writer cant make everyday life
interesting enough. for them, then let
ner dip into good old-fashioned fairy
storles. Maybe the fine child's writer
viii have to be born, but the Sunday
school library can be made.
And every parent or pair of parents
VINO nave a child in Sunday school should
take a vital interest in making the stonE
Of books from which they choose read
apie from a moral and a physical stand