Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1877 — "Reading Maketh a Full Man.” [ARTICLE]

"Reading Maketh a Full Man.”

So Mucn of Bacon’s celebrated aphorism at least Is generally admitted. There are but few parents who have not a measure of conscious pride in the fact that each child of theirs has learned to read, and, possibly, has a taste for reading. Looking only upon one side of the matter, they picture to themselves the happy hours which these young people will enjoy over their books as new objects are continually presented before their eyes, and new truths enfolded to their minds. They imagine the unfailieg resources of delight this exercise will lurnish in lonely hours or times of rest. And the increase of ideas, too; for they think a well-spring of knowledge will be opened of things delectable and- instructive. “A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in it.” Few consider, as they ought, the character of the draught for which their children are acquiring a thirst. Boys must drink to grow; girls must drink to thrive; but is it not worth just one thought to what they drink ? Do we admire what we call " drinking” for its own sake? Just now, in tile midst of a so-called temperance revival, it may be wise to call attention to a suggestive remark in the New York Evangelist , which runs thus: “Our own impression is that our city boys and girls ‘ drink in’ more damaging draughts f rom their pictorial stoiy papers than from the corner saloons But few, comparatively, take the intoxicating cop; the mass read.” We quite understand that the responsibility involves a perplexity of care, and breaks up some welcome tranquillity, it is a relief to many a careworn and busy mother to have her family quietly settled for the evening over a story book.' Freed, for a blessed little hour, from their exhausting prattle or noisy play, she gives no anxious thought to the mental food they are devouring, if here and therq a grain Or two of clear poison is swallowed, she is ignorant of the fact. At any rate, she asks, piteously, “ How could I help it?" But a child, left to itself to select its own reading, will take to that first which attracts the eye. Its impressionable mind is like the unsown field, left to catch every chance seed. As surely as the one will grow tares and thorns, the other will be tempted and lured by the flashy but attractive literature constantly spread before it. That such vile stuff exists, and is thrust every day into the notice of us all, no one can doubt who will examine the stock in trade of almost every newsstand, or the Blielves of any second-class book-store. Buck “ literature ” is all the more harmful because its true character is not made apparent. It is glossed over; and, to make it acceptable, some of it hears the imprint of respectable publishing-houses. It has- just enough respectability about it to shield it from the hands of the law.— Chrutwn Weekly.