Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-02-04
OMIC SUPPLEMENTS
8>A--~------
ARE SCORED
GiVG2..ChildFGR a Distorted
View of Behavior.

New York, February 2.-The comic
supplements Of some Sunday uewspa-
pers We're censured by Percival Chubb.
principal of the high school depart
ment of the Ethical Culture Club IN
speech at the Child Welfare Ez-
hibit.
These comic supplements, because
of their "glori1cation of the cheeky.
disrespectful, irreverent child, he said
"tend to make children toe smart"
"They give the children a distorted
view of what is commendable and
desirable" said Mr.. Chubb, and one
or two newspapers, on the other hand
stand apart from the rest as exhibit
ing an endeavor to provide wholesome
material.
Education in this city is largely 10
protect the child from the unfayorabIe
adult environment with which the
child is necessarily surrounded This
city is not a child's world. 1t is an
adult world which recks little of the
| effect of its adult ways on the sensi-
| tiveness and innocence of the young.
The nervous rush and crush, the sell
fish push and greedy haste which reacn
barbarous climax in the subway the
immodest assertiveness, are all UNI
! wholesome and ruinous TO children.
The interest of the child is every
where nudged with other things that
concern his elders-beautifiers, bav-
trages and the like.
Against these influences the teach
ers of the city have to wage a grim and
Lrcertain war. The teachers have 10
counterfeit the influence of the adult
theatre and vaudeville with its rag
time ditties, which needless parents
allow their children to patronize The
moral task of the school is to protect
the boys against smoking, drinking
and gambling, which they see around
them. The girls, in the same way,
have to be protected by the schools
from folly and immodesty in dress
and from all the vagaries of faunt-
ing fashion
These things will continue to hap
pen until every school board is phi
marily a board of moral health which
jealousy guards the child against Ill
forms of moral disease-posters,
shows, sensational newspapers and
songs. The newspaper should not be
so free to the child under sixteen,
at least Its chronicle of scandal, sin
and crime gives a distorted view to
the child.
THE child should have its own
periodical literature. The popular
monthlies ana bi-monthlies are not
obtainable. But this very tameness
Of the monthlies may account for the
Sunday debauch in flambouyant color
and violent drawings. 1t is when we
come to that American monster of m $
rule, the lurid comic supplement for
the child's particular benefit, that om
troubles begin 1t is, in almost every
which serve up daily and nightly n
our yellow journals the misshapea,
ape-like creatures Of a diseased mag
nation.
1T is strange that the churches and
Sunday schools have not been active
to suppress this Sunday invasion JrI
case, the product of the newspape,
vaudeville artist, who has lost his
sense of humor, his ethical values and
his taste.
1t glorifes the smart child prof.
Gent in monkey tricks; the cheeky
disrespectful and irreverent child. vino
guys his elders and betters; the Ii6-
ertine child of silly, humoring par
ents. It's so-called humor is the ha>
NOR Of distortion akin to that Drovil-
ed for parents in those inane cartoons
yulgarity. Is any child who has feast
ed on such coarse food in any state
OF mind to attend Sunday school y
church. is indulgence in this CONT
supplement habit calculated to induce
the right kind Of reaction after the
services of the Sunday school n
church? If the parents, as their chief
Sunday relaxation, give themselves up
to the enjoyment of the average type
Of swollen Sunday newspaper, with its
ugly mosaic Of scandal, gossip and
crime, and its FREQUENT indecent III
quancy what is to be expected OF the
children?"
We mako Picture Frames TO order.