Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-09-09
cnlLDREN's READING.
The Ideal Library Tor Young People.


Mrs. Sarah X. Bolton, the author Of
many helpful works, writes of books
for the children as follows:
when books like Little Women
sell so wen that the author makes
nearly or quite $l00.0 from their sale.
it is certain that children like good
books quite as well or better than the
dime sensational ones.
Books that teach patriotism like
those of Charles Carleton Coffin in The
Building of the Nation are quite as
charming as novels. and instructive at
the same time. The lives of noble per-
sons are always helpful, and if well
told. cannot fail to be fascinating.
Books that tell of the habits of animals
and birds, and teach kindness to them,
can be made most attractive. Black
Beauty has done great good.
We cannot expect children to lk"
stupid books, with long. difficult words,
any more than grown people. Happily
the day of simplicity of style, as founi
in Tennyson, and some other great
writer's, has already dawned.
History can be made intensely in
-
child, was never tired of reading the
red-covered volumes by Jacob and
John S. c. Abbott. The sale of Butter
worth's 'Zigzag Journeys shows how
much young folks enjoy books Of
travel.
Mary E. Burt of Chicago, has done
the children great service in preparing
for them the classics of the old Greek
Of fI.,
great works of later times. 1t is a mis-
take to suppose that children like
common place things better than the
best.
Margaret Fuller was so charmed
with Shakespeare when she was eight
years old, that she scarcely could be in
duced to lay down the book. Perhaps
she was an exceptional child, but most
children can be led to enjoy Homer,
and other great authors, if properly
placed before them.
Harriet Beecher Stowe read Ivan
hoe several times before she was in
her teens. At eight years of age
George Eliot was so distressed because
one of the Waverley novels which had
been loaned to member of her house
hold had been returned before she had
finished it, that she sat down and wrote
out from memory nearly the whole
story. She was made happy when the
volume was re- borrowed
when Harriet Martneau was seven,
finding on the table when the family
were at church, an old copy of Para
disc Lost she read it eagerly, and
went to sleep at night repeating it, till
she knew the book almost by heart.
when Benjamin Franklin was II he
was reading Defoe's Essays upon
Projects. containing hints on banking,
friendly societies for the relief of men,
bers. colleges for girls and asylums fo.
idiots, and strange to say, carried out
nearly every project in later life
Pilgrims Progress was the first book
he ever owned. Sir Humphrey Davy,
before he could read, knew much Of
this book by heart. Horace Greeley
had read the Bible through, and Pill
grim's Progress before he was six
years old. Abraham Lincoln read and
re-read Bunyans book when a child,
till he could repeat much Of it.
Franklin read Defoe's work and
Cotton Mather's Essays to do Good,
simply because in his fathers poor
nome there was little else to read.
Concerning the latter book, when ne
vas 80 he said, This volume gave me
such turn for thinking as to have ar
influence on my conduct through life
for l have always set a greater value
on the character of doer of good than
m any other kind of regulations; and
if / have been a useful citizen, the pub
c owe the advantage of it to that
book
IF children can be spoiled by reading
Dad books. who shall say how much
hey are developed, and made noble,
Zen great men and women, by reading
good books.
'Faraday, the son of a blacksmith
was led into his grand life-work by
reading in every spare moment the
looks he was binding. The articles on
Electricity in the Encyclopedia Britain
nica' led to his making an electrical
nnachine-a most simple one--and later
10 his worldwide fame.
Lincoln felt that reading the Life
of Washington when a barefoot boy.
in his log, cabin. inspired him to be-
come the man he was. When a good
woman asked him what would become
of him, he said:
We'll reckon I'm goin' to be Presi-
dent of the United States one of these
days
"One stormy night the rain beat into
the cabin and soaked the precious Life
of Washington Abraham worked
three days at 25 cents day to pay
damages and thus made the book his
own.
I'VE are apt to give children books
which are too weak rather than too
strong. Let child know something of
the best poetry, the best history, the
best essays. and the best fiction. be-
cause life soon becomes SO full of labor
that there is little time for reading for
the most of u.s.