New-York tribune., 1900-05-28
BOOKS AND THE BOY.
KATHARINE f. REIGHARD GIVES SOME
INTERESTING SUGGESTIONS
TO MOTHERS
TO MOTHERS.

There has been good deal of discussion lately
on the influence of books upon children and the
best books for them to read. Katharine Ferrand
Reighard says in a recent number of THE Out
look:
She n who knows best how to bring up children is
same reasoning the only person who could plan
oev Ted OF tor child is who who has
children | had given not little consideration as
pie and how they should be trained in the appre-
citation of good literature
Looking forward with eager anticipation to the
growth and mental development of my oldest boy.
e ey IN my S % hoo MADE mac
that his liking and mental development were not
SON who Said: While You are hesitating Which
book your boy shall read and balancing the merits
Sdth Sf two books another boy will have read them
! showed a lamentable ignorance of the chd's
accurately measured and enlarged with the
certain periods definite sa limits OF expressiOn and
Right here Teazed the secret Of m my fe
had sought to prescribe and impose certain sto-
childs own characteristics and that what is truly
ACQUIRED comes only from response to an inward
rive rive impulses Of powerful and important kind
comprehend: It is mistake to write down to their
The boys love for fairy myth and folklore
stories was very early shown. and proved source
% % 6a him in This
sense rhyme period and reached its climax at the he
listens with much interest when a story of that
nature is read to the younger children During the
years. the Alice in Wonderland books Ander-
sens e2 the % ae
Water Babies - stories from Homer and Virgil.
were devoured with avidity: The folklore stories
st and the Rpne jungle
with the same eagerness 80
giants pd1 dwarfs fairies. gods and heroes endowed
with powers for good and bad lasted LONGER thar than
not only because the reading about them was "a
direct direct influence upon the teaching and developing
of a rather imaginative mind. The stories Of
Parsa were not die tales to him They were
6ic of the aha a til 1e whch was to HIM
to older people It did not take me t long to get
be childish in tone and expression, and l.. l
realize that Ghd rs ns pabon I'D
The Arabian Nights tales Robinson Crusoe, Gul- sn-
older people, but because children love and enjoy
them they haTe to be 6 hm
sicaes Of the up m or4 In the eb sfSrgs n m
51PG chds shs 0'asl
ever think Of such thing as course Of reading
fne after brdws 6ooRs in their an
they select by a kind of instinct the food which
edge insensibiy as the earth gathers soil; This was
the f wn myself ~ have as ot rea
something and have read great many many outer out Of
every eve one reads that have never opened" BY
this method Lowell shows practically how EngNsn
charles Lamb in sPeaking Of Rdget Elias tbag hag
By or design into spacious closet Of good
old English books, without much selection or pro,
wholesome 1diso pasturase.. Had twenty girls. they
should be brought up up in tn this Macauav
gulped down everything within his reach good bad
ra9ns bv which he LAID up rich
univ
have taught him to acquire and hold in easy mas mas
from my theories of how and what my boy should i
and h on t wqd brasv a4d took S Ra
s In h fairy hs him
and bs read o at fasens Gf m
lives of the trappers and scouts carried him into into
9barea Rs aFy %s in
French and Indian Wars and as was nevta6e nt
a series of stories upon that epoch
Virgil, and entered upon Charlotte Yonge's histo,
Aneent Tss OF otn
to 5 his ns % dea 5 pay a5e
characterized by warwhoops, scalping hunting and
Parkman's La. Sale" and The Conspiracy Of Of
of those fascinating books.
child made me fear that his mind would
no concentrating power so as 1d an pern Hia
watha's Childhood by heart. AT different times
which would be equivalent, perhaps. to three
hours. ne learned it all. and even more He has
liking for poetry of any kind. and although
beautiful poems have been conscientiously read TO
him he fretted objected to listening; so con-
due to the fact that the child is somewhat tone
deaf and consequently rhythm and rhyme do not
give any pleasure to him. -
After hearing little account OF the siege or
IIeyden, he interested enough to read parts or
Motley's Dutch Republic and little later stories
from the Nibeungenlied gave him delight in his
During this last year he has been completely
absorbed by the age of chivalry, started there by
the Tales Of King Arthur" This flame has been
famed by number of stories by q. A. Henty on
that period. In his play now he and his friends
personate King Arthur and his knights and Ivan
hoe and his leisure time, when not reading. is
spent in whiting out javelins. swords and shields
from sticks and boards. M.
The fifty more books that Henty has written
have such attraction for him that he is now alb
sorbng them with much partiaty.
is unfair to refer to the examples or
Macauley Sumner. Charles Lamb and Lowell as
examples of the right spirit in which miscellaneous
reading may be carried They were all guilty
of that desultory reading which seems to be the
dread Of many parents and the despair OF SO
many librarians. Very few people read for some
special end: why should we insist upon our chill
dren doing 1t? ~
What / have learned from the child's own choice
of books is that his Judgment so far has been bet
ter than mine that his interest has gone naturally
through the different phases from fairy tales to
history and modern psychologists tell u.s. the
human mind passes.