The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1911-11-23
Children and Newspapers.

Prof. Frank M. Murray, Of the
New York teachers school, told the
Iowa teachers assembled at Def
Moines, that school children should
be taught to read the news as an i'm.
portant part of the educational pro.
cess.
Prof. Murray is right. The child
should be encouraged to read cur.
rent news. The recorded history OF
today is as necessary to the proper
training of children as the history
of dusty yesterdays. Every day is
an epoch. 1t is more important fol-
the child to know that Orville
Wright made his first flight in a
heavier than air machine today than
that Montgolfier rose from the
ground many years before in hot
air balloon. 1t all belongs to educa-
ton, is part of training, but the diff
ference is between the cemetery and
it's records and the busy street. The
newspaper and it's rapid presentation
of history up to the minute is the
text book of living, working, strain
ing things. There are thousands OF
children and grown persons who can
reel glibly off an accurate list of
men who were factors in government
before themselves were born who
couldn't name the present cabinet of
the president of the United States or
name an official of the present state
administration outside of the gov
ernor.
Perhaps we are working the
wrong way in our teaching of his
tory. Possibly the contrast would
be greater and the comparison more
helpful if we were to begin with to-
day and work back several thousand
years instead of beginning with Sem
iramis and working slowly on to
Abraham Lincoln. The real thing
is Abraham Lincoln. The ocean
liner is the real thing with which the
child has to do. not Jason's skin
coracles, and the government he
must live under and adopt himself
to and to himself is that of the
Twentieth century, not the crude be-
ginning of social qualification. Es-
culapius was sage in his day. but
the bacteriologist is the real scien-
tist and protection of today. 1t is
we'll enough to know a lot of things
about the musty past but it is best
to know what is likely to be met just
outside the door On the way home.
But if the newspaper is to be d
textbook for the children, the teach
er and the parent, and the newspa-
per need to realize their RESPONSE
bility. The question what is news"
comes up. All that people desire and
demand to read in the newspa-
pers is not news. Much of the
stuff published as news is unfit for
human consumption, much is utterly
outside the necessities of the reader.
1t is not news in Iowa that a tramp
was killed near Agawam, N. Y, by
railroad train and a description of
the debris strung along the ties after
the train had passed is not necessar-
lily indicated. The details of trial
for an Infamous crime in progress
900 miles away is scarcely news
within the field of the average news
paper. But it is demanded and
printed perforce by respectable
minded newspapers in their own pro-
lection. The reading public de.
mands it. The taste for the yellow
page is not in the newspaper offices.
Editors handle it as they would
offal
If the child needs the newspaper
what will the parents do? When
they become as ready to blue pencil
the rotten part of the news as the
editors, there will be little which
children may not read to their own
in the newspapers.-Mar-
Times-Republican.