Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1883 — HABITS OF BEADING. [ARTICLE]

HABITS OF BEADING.

What Home Books Should Be Given to Children to Bead—Heading Aloud.' As we live now, it becomes object |to wean young people from children’s books,' and teach 'them to feed themselves from the store! of general literature. They are to leave off the corks and other life-preservers, and swim in the ocean. At the same time, however, we choose a beach where there is no undertow, and where the current does not set off shore. Beading aloud in the familv circle is almost sure to interest even the youngest people about what is read, if you have made your selections wisely. But, without relying upon that, a wellordered household Otight to be always tempting children to read men’s and women’s books; and in the purchase of books and other family arrangements such temptations should be one of the first’ considerations. If, for instance, I went to the fair, as Moses did, and found that for the $2 I had to spend I could buy either a second-hand copy of Lane’s “Arabian Nights,” or the long coveted “Pfeiffer’s Mystics,” if I had a family of young people at home I ought to buy the “Arabian Nights.” For the “Pfeiffer’s Mystics” I should send to the college library. I should put the “Arabian Nights” on the bookshelves, and I should be pretty sure that, in the course of twelve months, every member of the family over 10 years of age would know more or less about it. And this would be not simply so much stimulus or gratification to the imagination, but positive information as to Eastern habits and literature, and, indeed, a wider interest in the history and literature of the .world. Life would become larger and* the world wider, and this is the retd object of all education —an object necessarily lost sight of in a good deal-of the technical work of the .school-room, To speak of a mere detail, which, however, illustrates a principle, there should never be glass or other doors to a bookcase. No binding should be too good for use, and children old enough to handle books should be not only permitted but encouraged to take them down at pleasure. If there are any books not fit son the use of such children, they should be boxed up and put away, or sent to auction, or —probably best of all—burnt in the furnace fire.

Some children take to books, and to grave books, as naturally as ducklings take to water. But all children do not, and I would never leave a taste for reading to the chance of their doing so. I have no such respect for the free will of children; but I am willing, as Coleridge said—to prejudice my garden in favor of roses and strawberries. And, just as I teach my boy to swim, to ride on horseback, to drive well and to row, just as I teach him to read and write and multiply and divide—l should teach him to like books. Nor should I take it for granted that he will like them of course, more than I should take it for granted that he will swim of course. Probably he will, in a house full of good books, as a boy will probably learn to swim if he lives near the sea. But I am not going to leave either choice to that probability. Precisely because he is my boy I make it certain that he can swim by teaching him to swim; and so I make it certain that he shall be fond of books by teaching him what is the range and what the joy of literature. I am not at all above setting him easy stents in this matter. It is quite as well that he shall be made to begin where, of his own unbiased choice, he would not have thought of it. The time comes when, even if he is not a bookish boy, he can be told squarely that a certain range of reading is essential to a gentleman in civilized life; that if he does not like it to-day, he will to-morrow or next year; and that I wish him and expect him to read an hour a day in such and such books which I point out to him. But, even here, I should wish him, within a certain range, to make his own choice. When he once finds out by some experience what Mr. Emerson calls “the line of genius,” he will choose fast enough and well enough. I have known a boy who began—and thought it was by accident—on the local history of the neighborhood, and followed it out in the range of the various publications of the historical clubs and societies till his interest in history was sure. This was not by accident, any more than it was by accident that the Monitor met the Merrimac. It was because a wise and thoughtful father took care to have the right books at hand in their country home—where the boy conld study the Narragansett swamp fight on the ground if he chose. In that way, if you really want to do it, you can take a boy’s fondness for fish, or game, or flowers, or horses, or boats, or machinery, and put him in the way of improving himself in all these things by reading at first hand. Do not be particular. Do not worry if he skips. Do not expect him to take notes until you have shown him how. Do not ask him to talk too much about, what he is reading. But let him see that you are interested; and encourage him in every way, by sending everywhere within range for the books he wants, and by finding the people who are the best counselors. And here I return to the suggestion I threw out before, that reading aloud in the family is the best possible way to break in, and always proves a persuasion and temptation. There is a long period when a boy or girl does not read so easily but that the process itself is a burden. If you will read to him then, he will be very grateful to you, and you will form an appetite that he will never be rid of. I knew the mothe r of a family who rend the “Waverley Novels” aloud five times, as her several children became old enough to hear. The hour after tea belonged to the boy or girl whc was. say, 9 or 10 years old. The boy or girl had, so to apeak, the right to hear mamma, or somebody, read aloud. Well, you can read aloud any “Waverley” novel in a month, if you read an hour and a little more every evening. In the two years when each of these children claimed this ‘privilege, which their mother’s perseverance gave them, they would read, each of theul, with her, twenty of the

best of those stories. They would talk Mraiovw wsth hr’would nothsye read them alone. But by the time those Two years were ended, and another child had the turn, the habit of reading and love of reading were fully formed.— Bev. E. E. Hale, in Christian Union. 9