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D. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.25em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + img {border: 0;} + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + ins {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%; text-align: justify;} + + .bbox {border: solid 2px; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .unindent {margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + .right {text-align: right;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Children and Their Books, by James Hosmer Penniman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Children and Their Books + +Author: James Hosmer Penniman + +Release Date: September 15, 2007 [EBook #22604] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN AND THEIR BOOKS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the booksmiths at +http://www.eBookForge.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a><a href="images/001.png">[1]</a></span></p> + + + + + +<h1>CHILDREN AND THEIR<br />BOOKS</h1> + +<h3><br /><br />BY</h3> +<h2><span class="smcap">James Hosmer Penniman, Litt. D.</span></h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"><br /><br /> +<img src="images/emblem.jpg" width="100" height="99" alt="School Bulletin Publications emblem" title="" /> +</div> + + +<div class='center'><br /><br /><br /><br />SYRACUSE, N. Y.<br /> +C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER</div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a><a href="images/002.png">[2]</a></span></p> +<div class='center'><small>Copyright, 1921, by <span class="smcap">C. W. Bardeen</span></small></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a><a href="images/003.png">[3]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHILDREN AND THEIR BOOKS</h2> + + +<p>The most vital educational problem will always be how to make the best +use of the child's earlier years, not only for the reason that in them +many receive their entire school training, but also because, while the +power of the child to learn increases with age, his susceptibility to +formative influences diminishes, and so rapid is the working of this +law that President Eliot thinks that</p> + +<div class='blockquot'><p>"the temperament, physical constitution, mental +aptitudes, and moral quality of a boy are all well +determined by the time he is 18 years old."</p></div> + +<p>Great waste of the child's time and mental energy in the precious +early years is caused<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a><a href="images/004.png">[4]</a></span> by disregard of the way in which his mind +unfolds. Not only are children set at work for which they are not yet +fitted, but frequently they are kept at occupations which are far +below what they might profitably engage in. The child should be +guided, not driven; to force his mind is an educational crime. Long +continued attention and concentration are injurious, but by using tact +a great deal may be accomplished without strain.</p> + +<p>At first the aim should be not so much to fill the mind with knowledge +as to develop the powers as they are ready for it, and to cultivate +the ability to use them. The plasticity of the child's mind is such +that a new impression may be erased quickly by a newer one; his +character receives a decided bent only through repeated impressions of +the same kind. The imaginative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a><a href="images/005.png">[5]</a></span> faculty is one of the earliest to +appear, and a weakness of our educational systems is the failure to +realize its importance and to pay sufficient attention to its +development. It is well known that imagination is the creative power +of the mind which gives life to all work, so that without it Newton +would never have found the law of gravitation, nor Columbus have +discovered America. The world of make-believe is filled with delight +for the small child. He loves stories of imaginary adventure that he +can act out in his play,</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Poem: Now with my little gun I crawl"> +<tr><td align='left'>"Now with my little gun I crawl</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>All in the dark along the wall,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>And follow round the forest track</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Away behind the sofa back.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>I see the others far away,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>As if in fire-lit camp they lay;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>And I, like to an Indian scout,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Around their party prowled about."</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a><a href="images/006.png">[6]</a></span></p> +<p>Cultivate his imagination by helping the child to image what he has +read. Let us play that we are sailing with Columbus in a little ship +over the great green ocean. When we look far off from the top of a +wave we see nothing but sky and white-capped water; all around us are +angry faces and angry waves.</p> + +<p>It is easy to work on the emotions of a little child and thoughtless +persons may find it amusing but it is a serious matter, for it has an +injurious effect upon his nerves. Ghost stories and books which +inspire fear of the supernatural often do much harm to imaginative +children.</p> + +<p>The boundless curiosity of the child may be aroused and stimulated so +that he gets to know himself and the world about him in a way that +furnishes him with constant and delightful employment. The growth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a><a href="images/007.png">[7]</a></span> of +his mind is rapid and healthful, because he is reaching out to +comprehend and verify and apply to his own purposes the knowledge that +he derives from books and that which he obtains from observation. It +is not easy to realize the ignorance of children. Dr. G. Stanley Hall +found by experiments with a large number of six-year-olds in Boston, +that 55 percent did not know that wooden things are made from trees. +The world is strange to them; they must grope their way, they are +attracted by the bright, the flashy, the sensational, and their tastes +will develop in these directions unless they are taught better. +Grown-ups estimate in terms of previous experience; the child has had +little previous experience to which to refer. Edward Thring says:</p> + +<p>"The emptiness of a young boy's mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a><a href="images/008.png">[8]</a></span> is often not taken into account, +at least emptiness so far as all knowledge in it being of a +fragmentary and piecemeal description, nothing complete. It may well +happen that an intelligent boy shall be unable to understand a +seemingly simple thing, because some bit of knowledge which his +instructor takes it for granted he possesses, and probably thinks +instinctive, is wanting to fill up the whole."</p> + +<p>To impart the desire for knowledge and the power of getting it is next +to character-building the most important work of the school. Encourage +self-activity to the fullest extent. When the child asks a question be +careful not to put him off or discourage him, but if it is possible to +show him how to find the answer for himself do so, even at the expense +of considerable time and trouble. Aid that quenches curiosity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a><a href="images/009.png">[9]</a></span> retards +mental growth. Many children ask questions merely for the sake of +talking, and forget the question before they have heard the answer. As +the child gradually becomes able to use them show him how to employ +books as tools. Keep reference books on low shelves or tables in +convenient places, where it is easy to get at them. Show the child +that the dictionary, the atlas, and the encyclopaedia contain stores +of knowledge accumulated by the work of many scholars for many years +and laboriously classified and arranged for the benefit of seekers +after information. Show him how to investigate a subject under several +different titles and how to get what he needs from a book by the use +of the table of contents, index, and running head lines, and how to +use card catalogues and Poole's Index. Help<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a><a href="images/010.png">[10]</a></span> him to look up on the map +the places he reads about. Explain the scale of miles and teach him to +use his imagination in making the map real; show him that the dots +represent towns and cities with churches, parks, and trolley cars, and +that the waving lines are rivers on which are steam boats carrying the +productions of one section to another.</p> + +<p>As he grows older teach him to draw his own conclusions from +conflicting statements and to preserve the happy medium between +respect for the authority of books and confidence in his own +observation. Most boys and girls do not observe and they do not think; +they have no opinions except those made for them by others. We are too +apt to cultivate the memory and to neglect observation, imagination, +and judgment. The result is a wooden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a><a href="images/011.png">[11]</a></span> type of mind which has too great +respect for printed matter and little initiative in accurate +observation and in using the imagination and the judgment in making +what has been observed and read practically useful.</p> + +<p>Encourage the child to talk about what he reads in a natural way, but +do not allow him to become a prig by saying what he supposes you would +like to have him rather than what he really thinks.</p> + +<p>Do not be too eager to stamp your individuality upon the child; he has +a right to his own. Find out what his tastes and inclinations are and +develop him through them. Ascertain what he is really interested in; +very often it is something quite different from what you suppose. His +point of view is different from yours. Translate what you wish him to +be interested<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a><a href="images/012.png">[12]</a></span> in into terms of his own life and experience. Success +in education comes to a great extent from skill in establishing +relations between what the child already knows and that which you wish +him to acquire.</p> + +<p>No part of education has more to do with character-building than the +inculcating of a love of good literature. S. S. Laurie calls +literature "the most potent of all instruments in the hands of the +educator, whether we have regard to intellectual growth or to the +moral and religious life". "It is easy," he says, "if only you set +about it in the right way, to engage the heart of a child, up to the +age of eleven or twelve, on the side of kindliness, generosity, +self-sacrifice; and to fill him, if not with ideals of greatness and +goodness, at least with the feelings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a><a href="images/013.png">[13]</a></span> or emotions which enter into +these ideals. You thus lay a basis in feeling and emotion on which may +be built a truly manly character at a later period—without such a +basis you can accomplish nothing ethical, now or at any future time. +But when the recipient stage is past, and boys begin to assert +themselves, they have a tendency to resist, if not to resent, +professedly moral and religious teaching; and this chiefly because it +then comes to them or is presented to them in the shape of abstract +precept and authoritative dogma. Now, the growing mind of youth is +keen after realities, and has no native antagonism to realities merely +because they happen to be moral or religious realities. It is the +abstract, preceptive, and barren form, and the presumptuous manner in +which these are presented that they detest. How,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a><a href="images/014.png">[14]</a></span> then, at this +critical age to present the most vital of all the elements of +education, is a supremely important problem. It is my conviction that +you can only do so through literature; and the New Testament itself +might well be read simply as literature. The words, the phrases, the +ideals which literature offers so lavishly, unconsciously stir the +mind to lofty motives and the true perception of the meaning of life. +We must not, of course, commit the fatal blunder of making a didactic +lesson out of what is read. We take care that it is understood and +illustrated, and then leave it to have its own effect."</p> + +<p>Children behave better when their minds are occupied; an interest in +literature has proved in numerous instances to be an aid to discipline +in the schoolroom. It is sad to think how little that is refining<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a><a href="images/015.png">[15]</a></span> and +elevating comes into the lives of many children. The attitude of the +average school boy toward life is shown by the fact that he refers to +any stranger as a "guy". The rough horse play of the movies fills such +a boy with exquisite delight. To see on the screen a man have a lot of +dough slapped in his face is the highest form of humor. His mind is +active but it has no suitable nourishment. What is needed is to direct +it. President Angell has told us how boys were inspired by that great +teacher Alice Freeman Palmer:</p> + +<p>"I attended a class in English Literature which she was teaching. The +class was composed of boys from fifteen to eighteen years of age, in +whom one would perhaps hardly expect much enthusiasm for the great +masters of English Literature. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a><a href="images/016.png">[16]</a></span> it was soon apparent that she had +those boys completely under her control and largely filled with her +own enthusiasm. They showed that at their homes they had been +carefully and lovingly reading some of the great masterpieces and were +ready to discuss them with intelligence and zest."</p> + +<p>"Mind grows," says Carlyle, "like a spirit—thought kindling itself at +the fire of living thought."</p> + +<p>To keep the heart open to elevating influences, to enjoy really +beautiful things, to take a dignified and noble view of life, these +are the results that must follow association with the best thoughts of +the best minds, which is literature. And it is one of the wonders of +literature that some of the best of it is adapted to every order of +intelligence. When one gets older his mental field widens,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a><a href="images/017.png">[17]</a></span> he cannot +then read all the best, he must choose; but the classic books for +children are not so numerous that the child may not read and reread +them.</p> + +<p>Cultivation of the literary taste of the child may begin as soon as he +can talk. He will early take an interest in simple stories and poems +and sooner than many suppose, he may be taught to read those which he +has already learned by heart. From the beginning reading should be +easy and interesting. The child should look forward to it with +pleasure. He loves stories, let him see that the best of them are in +books told by better story tellers than he can find elsewhere. Help +the child to appreciate the book, to take an intelligent interest in +it, and gradually lead him up to that love of the best which is the +foundation of culture. Do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a><a href="images/018.png">[18]</a></span> think that he can see all there is to +enjoy at the first reading; a book is classic because it may be read +over and over and always show something that was not seen before. +There is a distinction which teachers and parents do not always +recognize between books, which are beyond the child merely because of +the hard words in which the idea is clothed and those in which <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'she'">the</ins> +thought itself is above his comprehension. "Children possess an +unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or high in imagination or +feeling so long as it is simple likewise. It is only the artificial +and the complex that bewilder them," said Hawthorne, and because of +his knowledge of this fact he wrote his exquisite classics for +children. The phraseology of books is frequently different from that +to which the child is accustomed. He must be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a><a href="images/019.png">[19]</a></span> taught to understand +thought as expressed in printed words, his vocabulary is limited; in +reading aloud he will often pronounce words correctly without any idea +of what they mean and far more frequently than you imagine he will +receive a wrong impression by confusing words like <i>zeal</i> and <i>seal</i> +of similar sound and totally different meaning. A teacher accidentally +found out that her class supposed that the "kid" which railed at the +wolf in Aesop's fable was a little boy, and I have had a child tell me +that he saw at Rouen the place, where Noah's ark was burned, of course +he meant Jeanne d'Arc. "The mastery of words" says Miss Arnold is an +essential element in learning to read. Our common mistake is, not that +we do such work too well, but that we make it the final aim of the +reading lesson, and lead the children<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a><a href="images/020.png">[20]</a></span> to feel that they can read when +they are merely able to pronounce the words." "Observation has +convinced me" wrote Melvill Dewey "that the reason why so many people +are not habitual readers is, in most cases, that they have never +really learned to read; and, startling as this may seem, tests will +show that many a man who would resent the charge of illiteracy is +wholly unable to reproduce the author's thoughts by looking at the +printed page."</p> + +<p>Children make their first acquaintance with books from the pictures. +They like plenty of them with bright colors and broad simple treatment +and prefer a rude sketch with action to the finest work of Walter +Crane or Kate Greenaway. Illustrations should help the child to +understand the story. Pictures of historic places and objects and +adequate reproductions of works of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a><a href="images/021.png">[21]</a></span> great artists are of value later, +for, while the aesthetic sense of the child may be cultivated by +surrounding him with the beautiful—flowers, pictures, books, a +recognition of the fact that the love of the artistic is of +comparatively late development, will prevent much discouragement.</p> + +<p>The child learns from his reading what kind of a world he lives in, +through books he also becomes acquainted with himself and with his +tastes and abilities and sometimes he finds out from them what he is +fitted for in life. When carefully directed, reading may be made to +cultivate common sense, self-reliance, initiative, enthusiasm, and +ability to turn one's mental and physical capital to the best +advantage and to make the most of one's opportunities—qualities which +ensure success in life, and it also should cultivate the affections +and those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a><a href="images/022.png">[22]</a></span> kindly feelings which make the world a better place to live +in. Try to interest the child in books which give true and noble ideas +of life where wrong-doing brings its natural consequences without too +much preaching. The moral should not be dragged in, the day of the +sugar-coated pill in literature is past. The right books are those +that teach in a straightforward way that character is better than +superficial smartness, that success does not always mean the +accumulation of a large amount of money and that it is not a matter of +luck but that it depends upon perseverance in faithful work; books +which develop the child's sympathies by teaching consideration for the +feelings of others, kindness to animals and to all weak and dependent +creatures. Lack of reverence is common in the youth of today and books +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a><a href="images/023.png">[23]</a></span> papers which ridicule old age, filial duty and other things which +ought to be <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'rep-spected'">respected</ins> are all too common. Few have added more to the +happiness of mankind than he who has written a classic for children. +It takes very unusual qualities to write for them. Sympathy with the +child: brightness and simplicity of diction are much rarer than one +would suppose until he seeks for them with the child. The first +requisite of a book is that it should interest the child, the next is +that it should inspire and uplift him. The imparting of information is +less important, but whatever information the book contains should be +accurate and useful. When a child has learned to appreciate those +classics which are suited to his comprehension he will not be likely +to waste his time on such futile things as tales of imaginary +adventure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a><a href="images/024.png">[24]</a></span> thickened with a little inaccurate history. He will prefer +books which describe what really happened to those which tell what +someone writing long after thinks possibly might have happened.</p> + +<p>We have a good deal of nervous prostration now-a-days but little +refining <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'leis-sure'">leisure</ins>. Shorter days of labor give more spare time and the +schools can render a great service to the nation by teaching how to +make the best use of this time and by creating the desire to devote a +part of it to the reading of good books and especially to the reading +of the American classics. How few resources most persons have in +themselves and how flat and unprofitable their lives are. They devote +their moments of leisure to killing time, when association with the +right reading in early life would have taught them to cultivate that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a><a href="images/025.png">[25]</a></span> +inward eye which has been called the bliss of solitude. He who has a +love of reading, however limited his means or however restricted his +opportunities may give himself, if he will, a good education. He, who +has a taste for good books in youth, will rarely read anything else in +maturer years.</p> + +<p>"From the total training during childhood" says President Eliot, +"there should result in the child a taste for interesting and +improving reading, which should direct and inspire its subsequent +intellectual life. That schooling which results in this taste for good +reading, however, unsystematic or eccentric the schooling may have +been, has achieved a main end of elementary education; and that +schooling which does not result in implanting this permanent taste has +failed. Guided and animated by this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a><a href="images/026.png">[26]</a></span> impulse to acquire knowledge and +exercise his imagination through reading, the individual will continue +to educate himself all through life. Without that deep-rooted +impulsion he will soon cease to draw on the accumulated wisdom of the +past and the new resources of the present, and as he grows older, he +will live in a mental atmosphere which is always growing thinner and +emptier. Do we not all know many people who seem to live in a mental +vacuum—to whom indeed, we have great difficulty in attributing +immortality because they apparently have so little life except that of +the body? Fifteen minutes a day of good reading would have given any +one of this multitude a really human life. The uplifting of the +democratic masses depends on this implanting at school of the taste +for good reading."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a><a href="images/027.png">[27]</a></span></p> + +<p>The great men of letters have usually been those who have been +accustomed to good books from the mother's knee. Where the taste for +reading has not been inherited it must be acquired by continuous +effort and some of the world's greatest achievements have been made by +men who toiled on in poverty and distress to improve their faculties. +There is no fact more uniformly evident in the biographies of great +men than that they read great books in youth. Nicolay and Hay say of +Abraham Lincoln:—</p> + +<p>"When his tasks ended, his studies became the chief pleasure of his +life. In all the intervals of his work—in which he never took +delight, knowing well enough that he was born for something better +than that, he read, wrote, and ciphered incessantly. His reading was +naturally limited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a><a href="images/028.png">[28]</a></span> by his opportunities, for books were among the +rarest of luxuries in that region and time. But he read everything he +could lay his hands upon, and he was certainly fortunate in the few +books of which he became the possessor. It would hardly be possible to +select a better handful of classics for a youth in his circumstances +than the few volumes he turned with a nightly and daily hand—the +Bible, "Aesop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," "The Pilgrim's Progress," +a history of the United States, and Weem's "Life of Washington". These +were the best, and these he read over and over till he knew them +almost by heart. But his voracity for anything printed was insatiable. +He would sit in the twilight and read a dictionary as long as he could +see. He used to go to David Turnham's, the town constable,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a><a href="images/029.png">[29]</a></span> and devour +the "Revised Statutes of Indiana," as boys in our day do the "Three +Guardsmen." Of the books he did not own he took voluminous notes, +filling his copy-book with choice extracts, and poring over them until +they were fixed in his memory. He could not afford to waste paper upon +his original compositions. He would sit by the fire at night and cover +the wooden shovel with essays and arithmetical exercises, which he +would shave off and then begin again. It is touching to think of this +great-spirited child, battling year after year against his evil star, +wasting his ingenuity upon devices and makeshifts, his high +intelligence starving for want of the simple appliances of education, +that are now offered gratis to the poorest and most indifferent. He +did a man's work from the time he left school; his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a><a href="images/030.png">[30]</a></span> strength and +stature were already far beyond those of ordinary men. He wrought his +appointed tasks ungrudgingly, though without enthusiasm; but when his +employer's day was over his own began."</p> + +<p>Boys like Abraham Lincoln may be relied upon to direct their own +reading, but the average child is unable to do this. An important +thought which is not always kept in mind by educators is stated thus +by Huxley:—"If I am a knave or a fool, teaching me to read and write +won't make me less of either one of the other—unless somebody shows +me how to put my reading and writing to wise and good purposes." It is +not easy to interest in real literature a child whose father reads +nothing but newspapers and whose mother derives her intellectual +inspiration from novels, but such a child at least lives in a home +where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a><a href="images/031.png">[31]</a></span> there are books, though of an inferior kind, and there is +warmth and good lights and leisure to read in quiet and comfort. How +different is the case of the poor child, who comes from a tenement +where a large family congregate in one room, where the wash is drying, +where younger children are playing, there is little light, and no +books of any kind. It is with the occupants of such homes that the +children's librarian does the most wonderful work. To see a ragged, +barefooted child come into a palatial public library, knowing that he +has a right to be there and going directly to the shelf choose a book +and sit down quietly to enjoy it gives hope for the future of our +country. Consider the influence of such a child in his home; he not +only interests his brothers and sisters in good books, but also his +father and mother. One such child<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a><a href="images/032.png">[32]</a></span> asked a librarian "Will you please +start my father on some new fairy tales, he has read all the others." +According to the New York Public Library "Reading room books have done +more to secure clean hands and orderly ways from persistently dirty +and disorderly children than any remedy hitherto tried." There should +be enough copies of suitable books and they should be kept on low +shelves where the children can have direct access to them. When we +spend millions teaching children to read, we should be willing to go +to some expense in order to provide them with what is worth reading. +It is impossible for those who have not studied the subject to realize +the quantity of inane trash with which many children stultify their +minds. They read so much that their thought is confused and they +cannot even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a><a href="images/033.png">[33]</a></span> remember the names of the books whose pages are passing +before their eyes. The market is flooded with books ranging from the +trivial to the harmful which, unless he is properly directed, will +divert the child from the real books which he should read and read +again. "Ninety children out of one hundred in the public schools below +the high school," says Caroline M. Hewins, "read nothing for pleasure +beyond stories written in a simple style with no involved sentences. +Nine out of the other ten enjoy novels and sometimes poetry and +history written for older readers, and can be taught to appreciate +other books, but not more than one in a hundred, has a natural love of +the best literature and desires without urging to read the great books +of the world," and she adds "Stories of the present day in which +children die, are cruelly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a><a href="images/034.png">[34]</a></span> treated, or offer advice to their elders, +are not good reading for boys and girls in happy homes."</p> + +<p>To form an impression on the white page of the child's mind is a great +privilege as well as a grave responsibility. He who makes sin +attractive in a child's book or dims the clear-cut distinction between +right and wrong will never be able to measure the far-reaching +consequences of his work. The child's reading should be constructive +rather than destructive. He should learn what to imitate rather than +what to avoid, but it is preferable that he should get necessary +knowledge of the evil side of human nature from a classic like Oliver +Twist than from his own experience or from cheap thrillers. The boy +needs to be kept from the vulgar cut-throat story, the girl from the +unwholesome<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a><a href="images/035.png">[35]</a></span> romance. Girls should read books that exalt the sweet +home virtues. Cheap society stories are not necessarily immoral but +they give false ideas of life, warp the mind and encourage +selfishness.</p> + +<p>The normal boy reads the easiest and most exciting thing that comes to +hand, he devours detailed accounts of baseball and football matches +and is familiar with the record of every player. The books he reads +deal with deeds rather than descriptions. He likes a story that he can +act out with not too many characters and with one central figure, he +identifies himself with the hero and undergoes in imagination his +dangers and triumphs, he likes play with a purpose to it, he is always +trying to make something, to accomplish something; he feels +unconsciously that he is part of the organic whole of the universe and +has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a><a href="images/036.png">[36]</a></span> work to do. The charm of books like Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss +Family Robinson consists in the fact they personify and epitomize the +perpetual struggle of mankind with the forces of nature. The boy takes +up fads; for a while all his interests are concentrated in boats, then +in postage stamps, then in something else. His mind must be occupied, +if we cannot fill it with good the bad will get in. Encourage the boy +to read books like Tom Brown, or Captains Courageous which show moral +worth expressed through physical activity. When he has been interested +in the deeds described in such a book have him do something of a +similar character to impress the lesson on his mind, for, as Herbert +Spencer states:—</p> + +<p>"Not by precept, though it be daily heard; not by example, unless it +be followed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a><a href="images/037.png">[37]</a></span> but only through action, which is often called forth by +the relative feeling, can a moral habit be formed," and Edward Thring +says:—</p> + +<p>"Boys or men become brave, and hardy, and true, not by being told to +be so, but by being nurtured in a brave and hardy and true way, +surrounded with objects likely to excite these feelings, exercised in +a manner calculated to draw them out unconsciously. For all true +feeling is unconscious in proportion to its perfection." Building up +knowledge without cultivating the power to use it is of small value. +Impression should go hand in hand with expression. Knowledge does not +become power until you use it. Children should read a great deal and +reading should be made attractive to them. The amount of real +literature suited to their taste and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a><a href="images/038.png">[38]</a></span> comprehension is not large and +as much as possible of it should be read. Matthew Arnold says that +school reading should be copious, well chosen and systematic. There is +often a great difference between the books which the child reads when +under observation, and those to which he resorts for solace and +comfort and turns over and over again when he is alone. The latter are +the ones that stamp his character. The school and the public library +can never take the place of the home library. It is the books that we +own that influence us. The child should know the joy of the ownership +of books and there is no better way to interest him in them, than by +giving them to him one by one as he reads them. He should have a place +where he may keep them in safety and should be taught to respect them +and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a><a href="images/039.png">[39]</a></span> keep them clean. His books should have all the charm that +pretty and durable binding, clear type and bright pictures can give +them. When trash is served up in so many alluring forms something must +be done to make literature attractive. It is not enough that the child +is reading what will do him no harm, his attention should be +concentrated on the permanent classics which are suited to his +comprehension and taste. He who does not read Aesop and Robinson +Crusoe and the Wonder Book in youth will very likely never read them +at all. There are a number of books like The Pilgrim's Progress, which +are constantly referred to but seldom read. A great deal of the time +and mental energy of children is wasted. The total freedom from books +and from all other refining influences during vacations is as +unnecessary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a><a href="images/040.png">[40]</a></span> as it is deplorable. An hour a day wisely employed and +directed during the summer would give a boy or girl an acquaintance +with Longfellow or Hawthorne, that would be a joy and inspiration in +all after life. The study of the author's biography in connection with +his works has an educational value which nothing else can replace. +Consider the influence of a thorough acquaintance with Longfellow or +Lowell. The atmosphere which surrounded them, the things that +interested them, the sources of their inspiration, the way in which +the common experiences of life grew beautiful under the influence of +their poetic imagination would be a civilizing force throughout life. +That chance is to but a small extent a factor of success, that nothing +is attained by the brightest mind without that infinite patience and +labor which in itself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a><a href="images/041.png">[41]</a></span> is genius, the brave way in which such men met +trial and adversity:—these are lessons which are not studied as they +should be.</p> + +<p>Because the imagination is developed early, children are able to find +a real delight in poetry even when it is beyond their complete +understanding. Sir Walter Scott says:—"There is no harm, but, on the +contrary, there is benefit in presenting a child with ideas beyond his +easy and immediate comprehension. The difficulties thus offered, if +not too great or too frequent, stimulate curiosity and encourage +exertion."</p> + +<p>As a melody once heard keeps on repeating itself in the ears, so a +beautiful thought makes an impression upon the mind that may never be +effaced. Charles Eliot Norton says:—</p> + +<p>"Poetry is one of the most efficient<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a><a href="images/042.png">[42]</a></span> means of education of the moral +sentiment, as well as of the intelligence. It is the source of the +best culture. A man may know all science and yet remain uneducated. +But let him truly possess himself of the work of any one of the great +poets, and no matter what else he may fail to know, he is not without +education."</p> + +<p>The inspiration and delight derived from familiarity with the best +poetry is one of the most precious results of education. The child +should be made to understand that school training is but the +preparation for the broader education which it is his duty and should +be his pleasure to acquire for himself; and to this end it is +essential that he be so taught that after leaving school he may look +not to the newspaper and the last novel for his ideals, but to the +high and worthy thoughts of the classics<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a><a href="images/043.png">[43]</a></span> and especially of the poets +of America. Many of the most inspiring deeds of our history have been +embodied in poems like Paul Revere's Ride with which every child +should be familiar. The works of Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell and +Holmes abound in teachings of the highest form of American patriotism +and in character studies of the great men who have made our country +what it is. The poetry that we have known and loved in childhood has +from its very association a strength and sweetness that no other can +have. It is to be regretted that children are by no means as familiar +with poetry as they should be and that the old-time custom of +committing poetry to memory is not more general. Bryant has wisely +remarked that "the proper office of poetry in filling the mind with +delightful images and awakening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a><a href="images/044.png">[44]</a></span> the gentler emotions, is not +accomplished on a first and rapid perusal, but requires that the words +should be dwelt upon until they become in a certain sense our own, and +are adopted as the utterance of our own minds." The value of reading +poetry aloud is very great. Few school children do it well, and it is +especially difficult for them to avoid reading in a sing-song way with +a decided pause at the end of every line. "Accuracy of diction," says +Ruskin, "means accuracy of sensation, and precision of accent, +precision of feeling." Reading poetry aloud is therefore an +accomplishment worthy of earnest cultivation. "Of equal honor with him +who writes a grand poem is he who reads <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'is'">it</ins> grandly," Longfellow has +said, and Emerson, "A good reader summons the mighty dead from their +tombs and makes them speak to us."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a><a href="images/045.png">[45]</a></span> To sit still and listen +attentively is a polite accomplishment and to reproduce accurately +what one has heard is as practically useful as it is unusual.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> +<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p> + +<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Children and Their Books, by James Hosmer Penniman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN AND THEIR BOOKS *** + +***** This file should be named 22604-h.htm or 22604-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/6/0/22604/ + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the booksmiths at +http://www.eBookForge.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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