Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 20, 1916

We Agree With Dr. Crafts

DR. WILBUR F. CRAFTS, of National Reform fame, has sounded a note of warning against magazines “chiefly devoted to exploiting sex, now multiplying like a plague of frogs, which are none the less dangerous that the nastiest things are said in polite language.” He calls attention to the fact that in some reading rooms, and in Christian homes, are found magazines whose pages are crowded with stories which are unfit to be read by the young people, and which ought not to find a place in any Christian home.

In this day of books, and of good books, there is little excuse for parents' placing before their children books whose teaching and influence lead away from purity and righteousness. We need to give more careful attention, first to what we read ourselves, and secondly to the reading matter which we place before our children. It is painful to see Christian men and women spending time following up divorce suits and murders as reported in the daily newspapers, or reading popular story magazines. God calls us to better things, and to a wiser employment of our time. If we were obliged to choose between the influence exerted on the lives of our children by the reading of pernicious literature and the influence exerted by evil companions on the street, we should choose the latter; but we need to guard our children from both influences.