The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-06-06
Miss Orcm Mctiuire.

Miss Orell Mcguire found the in
SEPARATION for Grafton in hat master of
childhood literature, Charles Dickens.
discussing Dickens Service to Child
ii"od. Some selected paragraphs fol-
low:
This year We celebrate the one-
anniversary of the birth Of
one of England's greatest novelists,
Charles Dickens. We are now far
enough away from the period in which
he lived to apply the test of time and
through the vista of the years to deter
mine his real merit. Everywhere dur
ing the present ear there has been
great awakened appreciation of his
works; his novels are being re-read
and n dramatizations of his great
stories presented. With his fame as
great now as it was a half Gentry ago
we may be certain that Charles Dick
ems holds ii permanent place among
the great novelists of the world.
Some are attracted to the works of
Dickens by their sparkling humor.
The %undaunted optimism of Mr.. Mi
cawber, II energetic figure of Miss
Betsy Trotwood and. the foolish blum
ders of Mr.. Pickwick furnish much
amusement. Others are affected by his
pathos. They admire the man who
could see the pathetic as we'll as the
humorous side of life. who could por-
tray the childish grief of David Cop
could describe the Cratichit's Christ
mas dinner. Some enjoy tho variety
and multiplicity of characters. Peo-
pie cross his pages in families, in
schools. and in mobs. each with some
individuality of his own and into the
creation of each has gone the authors
love or pity. Yet to say that Dickens
work was merely that of a public en-
%tertainer is to disregard one of his
of "Oliver Twist" 'Dombey and Son
Hard Times" Nicholas Nickelby'' and
in almost everything that he has writ
ten we see his great theme--the child
life of England.
lit is not hard to find what aroused
in Dickens this great love and SYM
pathy for children. He. himself, had
known the lot of the prosecuted. At
the root of his great zeal for reform
wa the memory of his own bitter
childhood. When he was but 8 years
old his father who was always a poor
manager was sent to the debtors pri-
son. Thus it was that an early age
the child as sent out to work in a
factory. 1t would have been an easy
matter for a neglected child like Dick
ems to a rogue or a ~vagabond
but instead Of sinking into The mass of
factory workers he merely observed
them and afterwards became their de-
scriber. Although the experience of
his childhood afforded opportunities
that no school or college could have
given yet it was so bitter to him that
years afterwards when he was IL sue
cessful and happy man he could not
look back to 1t without tears in his
eyes.
when Dickens began his great
work the rod was the almost universal
remedy for all defects in either ami
mails or human beings. Men whipped
their horses with impunity. they own
eG them and their right to punish
them was unquestioned. Mothers used
to subdue their children.
I'm all that he has written there is
a great plea for the cultivation of the
child's imagination. He shows the de-
plorable conditions of the children at
the Gradgrind school. He says, they
had heard nothing of giants or such
false things, no little Boy Blue ever
blew his horn for them. no Jack Hor-
ner' ever took a plum out of any pie
in their experience. No such ridicu-
lous person as Santa Claus eve put
anything in their stockings. Nc COW
ever performed the impossible feat of
jumping over the moon so far as they
knew. They knew or rather they
could say that a COW was a gramini-
vorous. Illuminating q%uadruped and
that. in Mr.. Gradgrind's philosophy
vas sufficient"