The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-10-19
in THE LITERARY FIELD
SENSIBLE REMARKS ON THE READ
ING SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN.
to Insist Upon Typewriter
Observation-Disclosures Harding
Davis nj Work.

A writer in the New York Mail and Elk
press discourses on the subject Of children's
reading in this fashion,:
II think it was Ruskin who answered
the letter of a friend asking for a list OF
books. suitable for a girl of fourteen, in
this way: You have a good library. Turn
your daughter loose in it and let her
browse Why will not the o~veranxious
parents and publishers be content with
that advice and let the boys and girls of
to-day browse awhile, instead of examining
their little intellectual insides with 'juve-
niles?'
Some of these books are really books
good, lively, healthy stories, their chief
fault being that they take the place of bet
ter ones which would be as much enjoyed.
But the majority are either wholly trivial
and inane or else are a sort of indigestible
jelly cake made up Of very thick and soggy
layers Of Information and moralizing and
very thin ones of Characterization and Incl
dent. Where there was one 'Rollo' and one
Sanford and Merton and one Parents
Assistant not so long ago, there are now
hundreds of examples of such paretic pap.
altered In form. but not in essence.
Even the best of the Juveniles is read
ing made e~asy-part and parcel of the false
system of education that has only too many
advocates nowadays, the aim Of which Is
to furnish a smattering acquaintance with
many superfcialities and the result of
which is a distaste for all that includes eff
fort in its acquisition.
THE only boys and girls book that Is
worth more than waste paper is the one
read with as much interest by the oldster
as by the youngster. Tom Brown and
Little Women Jules Verne's best dozen
and The Jungle these are not
books for 'grown-ups,' 1 do not know a
folio from a folding bed. l am willing to
leave 1t to the children. If they have had
a chance at fiction that is fiction and have
not had their natural taste spoiled by a
diet of Miss Nancyfied nonsense, you will
find the boys bully book and the girls
splendid story I'm nine cases out of ten, an
old favorite, well worth rereading, or a
new work. with merit of plot and construc-
ton IL not of style.
Let the youngsters browse. They will
does range from "Deadwood Dick to
"~Ivanhoe," and from Jack Harkaway'
to "Oliver Twist 1t will mean only that
the masters-the love of boyhood that
endCres-and into contempt for the trash
that at first divided his attention. What!
exclaims the fond mamma, looking up from
the list of holiday juveniles, leave him
free to chance upon all manner of horrid
things. like the Frederick Randoms" and
all those others that his father insists on
keeping In the bookcase?
Calm yourself, good madam. The acid
of knowledge will touch the young lips
all too soon, but 1t will not fall upon
them In the library. The child reads for
the story. What he does not understand
he will skip and not puzzle over. I
knew a little beast once whose mother
was indignant because some of his play
fellows offered to lend him The Three
Musketeers,' Charles O'Malley' and Gil
Bias Yet that boy was thrashed and sent
to coventry by those same reckless young
readers when they found out a little later
what his favorite reading really was, which
he procured Satan only knows where.
keeping the classics under lock and key
will not save the child from his bent. 1t
can only turn him to books less worth
there should be discrimination in all things.
Lambs Tales are better for the lambkins
than Shakespeare undiluted, and leaving
Burton In their way instead CT Galland's
Arabian Nights would be scarcely short
OF a crime. But it is a far cry from there
to the prurient prudery and nasty n~iceness
which would deny a boy acquaintance with
David Copperfield' because of Steerforth,
or forbid a girl to know Laura and Helen
because Pendennis was not a trousered
angel.
THE cult of the Juveniles has gone so
far that even the fairy tales are not to be
left alone. Among the new books is one
that wipes out all the bad things, like theft
and bloodshed, from the dear old stories
and slips neat little morals into the dis
babyhood. From Cinderella to Jack the
Giant Killer not one escapes the Bowdler-
izing of this specialist in chud study
Juvenilitis surely can go no further.
Prunes. prisms and Pecksniff! If the
babies of the future are to have ethical
collie before they are out of their swaddling
clothes death will be less unwelcome than
ever before to old-fashioned folk. What
ever its terrors, it will save US from ac-
Quaintance with posterity."