The Washington herald., 1920-09-05
ENILES LEADING WAY TO LITERARY RENAISSANCE?

TNlIlS u the age of juvenile prodigies.
More youngsters of both sexes are before
the 'footlghts' of the world at the present
than in any two generations of the times
gone by. Precocity seems to be the orde'
of the day; and if all the present-day youth
full geniuses retain their hold on the glt'
with which nature has endowed them ms
tory may repeat itself in another ElZa
bethan age of literature, another Ptoiehal'
period of mathematics, and another Mozart
ian epoch of music, all rolled into one
There, for instance, is Horace Wade, VINO
is writing books and putting into them
yirility which may serve as pattern from
which many men who are noted authors oI
Juvenile" books might profit.
have always been convinced that editors
and publishers OF Juvenile books spring into
beiDg-not like Minerva-full grown-but--
middle aged If they were ever boys or
glrls-how well they do conceal it. Get
ting to the children through the editorial
tarrage and barbed wire entanglements Ii
discouragng procedure, and the milk and
water literature that finally does trickle
through is an insult to the average child,
intelligence.
A ND now, what has happened-the chill
n dren. not caring for the poor author 5
expurgated and abridged editions of what the
editors think they want, have taken the
matter into their own hands And the first
grenade has been tossed into the editOris
trenches by Horace \. Wade. a boy of
eleven, who, in the words of George AIDE,
comes into our midst abruptly but with all
the delightful Doise of the most recent model
cf young America. He wears a football suit
and needs elderly protectors -
He wanted life and action-and he got it,
With determined stub pencil and wealth
cr-beaten tablet he fell to and the result
is a boys story that breathes, moves and
talks boys do and where adventures are
occasionally livened up by a real punch t.
the jaw. Written primarily for the enter
tainmen- and aclectation. of his schoo!
friends, the story finally came to the atten
tion of the older members of the family.
After breathless perusal of the 80 600
word tale his father decided to send 1t to
some publishers for criticism.
To describe the adventurous little tale in
nny way will only take away from the zest
and freshness of its surprise for the reader
I'll say this. thorgh-there are guns in 1t.
Wicked, I'll admit, but does not goodness,
like white snow, show up better through
contrast against black? And are not some
of the Juvenile masterpieces in fiction,
Treasure Islaud." for instance hand
somely pepperCd with bullets:
As for the boy himself, he is an alert,
srayeyed American youngSter who has in
his .short eleven years lived in San Fran
cisco, Alaska AMI Chicago. and is doubtless
embarrassed by his sudden rise to author
ship.
OPAL WHITLEY is another child prodigy
" who is making a stir in the world
through her literary productions. Tue,
Opal has just become of age, but the work
which is bringing her into the limeEght was
written when she was a grille barely
able to trace out her words in big printed"
letters. Moreover she is at present the sub
ject Of q very learned discussion among
scientists concerning the question of ''fos-
ter child fantasy For she believes that
she is the foster child of the people who have
declared with positiveness which is credited
by almost everybody except Opal herself that
She is their own truly real daughter.
To what extent does the world of make
believe in which ell children live affect their
lives in later years? Is it possible for the
dreams of childhood to become so realistic
that they cannot be outgrown, clingIng il
the mind of an adult until fact becomes fc-
ton and fiction becomes fact?
1t is seemingly ineIplicable for the infant
daughter of a comparatively uneducated
workman in a lumber camp to call pet toad
Lucisn Horace Ovid Virgil or to hold com
munion with stately fir tree named Michael
Angelo Sanzio Raphael.
The introduction in her diary gives
OpaPs explanation of how it happened that
a child in such surroundings could make
frequent illusions to names and facts that
indicate a familiarity with mythology, his
tory and literature. The explanation is that
she was not really Opal Whitley at all, but
the daughter of an ''angel father and
mother" a mother who taught the girl to
listen to what the flowers and trees and
birds were saying, read poems to her and
told her of different people and their won
derful work on earth father who Travelled
much and finally died 'in far lands" There
was a wreck at sea and the mother wa;
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