The San Francisco call., 1897-09-19
BOOKS CHILDREN SAY THEY READ.

Professor Thurber of the University of
Chicago has put to 5000 children in Chicago's
public schools these questions: What books
have you read since school began last Septem-
Der, and which one did you like the best?'
The answers make an interesting compilation
1t is said that "Uncle Toms Cabin" has first
place on the list; that Longfellow's "Evange-
line" stands as low as thirteenth, and John
Fiskes History of the United States as high
as fifteenth in the list OF 100 favorite volumes
chosen by boys above 13 years of age. For the
rest, many o. the books that stand the lowest
on the list are those written especially for
children.
This result is plainly disappointment The
LANES OF the books which children read are
not so hard to get that these returns are
valuable, and the statistics of preferences are
too obviously not implicitly to be trusted. Two
school boys in New York were asked last
winter to write something about their favorite
authors. One of them named as his favorite
books works of Scott, Dickens. Cooper Irving,
Porter, Eliot, Shakespeare and Hawthorne
The other, with unconscious humor, wrote:
LAS a rule, boys are fond OF works of adyen-
ture, and l am no exception to the rule 1t is
only natural that young people, seeing so
much of domestic life. DO not care to read
about it."
For statistical purposes the first answer was
qulsitely naive reflection, was precisely what
was wanted. Yet, probably seven boys out of
ten, sitting down to write formal answers to
such questions, would have responded as the
first boy did, and the results OF the tabulated
statistics would be, as they obviously were III
the case OF Professor Thurber's investigation
too amazingly gratifying from a literary
standpoint 10 be cOnfidentially accepted It is
too good an opportunity to please the teacher
and to assume a dtgnified and inspiring posi-
ton at little cost to be allowed to sin. The
temptation to the waggtshly bad boy 10 pose
as q prig and 10 the student to stretch the
facts little is altogether TOO great to be re-
sisted when the goody-good's answer is SO per-
feetly clear.
Still, it would be no more fair to say that
a great number of these boys uttered deliber-
ate falsehoods than 10 say that most of them
were prlgs. The truth Is, probably, that con-
sciousness OF what they believed to be the
right converted most of them for a moment
into belief that 1t was S the true one.
The Imagination of healthy boy never
sleeps; told to answer written list of oues-
tions like these, whose replies are evidently
to be compiled and eminently considered, he
lmaglnes himself a young philosopher in
struetlnS mankind; litterateur whose nice
nterary taste IS assumed, and he throws him
self into his part with enthusiasm, becomes
1or the nonce serious as a professor, and
spurns with all the bitterness of youthful
scorn those juvenile or exciting books that
other boys have read, and even he has read in
other shameful days not now to be even remem-
bered, and much less referred to.
The answers thus are OF little value as in.
dicative OF the literary tastes of Chi dren, but
they are typical of childhood nature. Be-
cause most OF the replies are just what "Sen-
timental Tommy" would have said, they show
that boys of his stamp. of his enthusiastic and
dramatic Imagination are common, and VIII lie
that is q compliment to the skill of Mr. Barrie,
its higher and wider significance is in the
light which it throws on the wortsllessness of
children's statistics prepared by them.