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Mental Food for Our Children

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Apr 3, 1913

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 90, No. 14.

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Mental Food for Our Children

By Kathrina B. Wilcox

KATHRINA B. WILCOX (Editor of Our Little Friend)
ASSOCIATED with the spirit of every true home is the love of children. Home without children gives one the feeling of coldness and selfishness, while the voices of happy children playing around the fireside at once kindles in the home-loving heart a longing for a name and place there. The cultivation of plants, flowers, and other beautiful things is interesting and profitable. But the mental, physical, and spiritual culture of the child, entered into as our Father designed, is educating, expanding, and beautifying. It is a subject which would bear much more instruction and discussion than it now receives among us as a people.
By observation I note that many parents seem to think that if they feed and clothe and house their children well, and give them opportunities for a good all-round education, their part is done. We would ask such parents, Are you aware what your child is doing at all hours of the day? Does he come straight home from school, or does he stop for a while with some of his young friends at the public library? If he attends public school, what does he find to read there? Do you know what he reads at home in the evening or at other spare moments? or are you so absorbed in other duties that you are satisfied as long as he is occupied?
A mother was once boasting of her child's fondness for reading. “She is such a bookworm. I can not call her away from her reading to help me,” she said. But upon careful investigation it was discovered that the child's studiousness consisted in the reading of cheap, sensational fiction.
Parents will do well to look carefully into the reading of their children. If some of the popular works of fiction and the detective stories so prevalent are not considered proper food for the criminals confined in our national and State prisons and reformatories, what about the tender, plastic minds of the growing children who are making character? It is just such reading-matter that helps to fill our jails and prisons. Are we educating criminals in our own homes?
As a man “thinketh in his heart, so is he.” What thoughts does the children's reading awaken within their hearts and minds? Are they pure, uplifting, soul-inspiring thoughts, which will make them grow to noble men and women? The literature may seem to be harmless, but unless it is helpful, discard it.
Parents, take time to read with them, to look carefully into what they read, and weigh it for its effect on their minds and characters.
We are endeavoring to make Our Little Friend at least partially fill the need that is felt by parents for good, wholesome reading-matter for the children. We have introduced from time to time different departments, which add to its interest and meet the needs of nearly all. Some of these are Natural History—Birds and Animals; How to Make Things—What a Boy Can Do and What a Girl Can Do; also Cooking, Sewing, Help One Another Club, Mothers' Helpers, Fathers' Minutemen, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Bible Band, Puzzles, as well as our leading subjects, such as the Bible and Nature Studies, Our Missionary Studies, and helpful Bible, missionary, and uplifting stories.
One mother, in speaking of the Help One Another Club and our Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, writes:— “I am delighted to send in this good report and letter of courage and good cheer from these helping hands and willing hearts. It does my heart good to see the interest the children and youth take. I feel these bands are such a help, not only to the children, but to all who will allow themselves to take an interest. These bands are a great encouragement to me, and help me to live more with my children, and become better acquainted with God's Word and works.”
“My boy has spent many hours planning and studying the dumb creatures, which would have been lonely hours or hours of evil learning, as we live in the city, and so close are boys who do not regard right at all. I hope to continue these studies of nature until he is yet more tender-hearted and kind.”
The editors and publishers are planning to issue the middle of May a children's missionary number of Our Little Friend. We want to do our part to keep alive in the hearts of the children a true missionary spirit, and we ask the co-operation of the parents in this work. Our plan is to issue a double number with a colored cover, which will sell for five cents a copy, the proceeds to go to the child widows of India.
Where the children attend church-schools, they will, we trust, form little bands to sell the paper, under the direction and supervision of their teachers.
And, parents, where your children do not attend church-schools, we earnestly request you to supervise their work with the paper unless it is taken up by some church officer. It is not well to let a child go out without careful instruction and direction as to where to go. Neither should he go to our own people.
We expect to make the paper so attractive that it will sell readily, and we hope the orders will come in early.