What Is Your Boy or Girl Reading?—What Is the Character of Their Music?—What Pictures Are Before Them?—Their Real Worth Determined by These Things
By Mary Alice Hare Loper, M. S.
“Parents, what are your children feasting upon—scum or cream?”
ONE in search of a healthful location does not choose a district where water stagnates in pools and marshes. It has long been known that in such a locality, malaria, typhoid fever, diphtheria, etc., may be easily contracted. People who settle in such districts, do so at the risk of their lives, and many die as the result.
Disease-Breeding Literary Atmosphere
But this is not so appalling as the fact that many, very many, are dying mentally and morally every year as the result of remaining in a disease-breeding literary atmosphere, surrounded by the yellow scum of the swamps of sin, where Death stalks boldly forth, and numbers his victims by thousands. Here are whispered from lip to lip revolting details of crime and wretchedness, and here are midnight orgies and drunken revelries accompanied by demoralizing strains of “rag-time” music.
It is passing strange that so many persist in remaining in the miasmatic atmosphere of iniquity, partaking of death-dealing scum, when there are so many invigorating uplands where health-giving cream may be had in abundance.
Many persons become so addicted to literary scum that they cannot appreciate anything that is wholesome and uplifting. The world to-day is largely following this trend, and the alarming results are everywhere visible in lax morals and increase of crime.
Entertainments That Produce Criminals
Juvenile literature and entertainments at the present time are of a character to propagate criminality. A public educator recently made the statement that he had attended perhaps ten moving-picture shows, to satisfy himself as to the kind of education the children were thus receiving; and in every one of these, some one was represented as killed. He considered such entertainments a great menace to childhood.
The immoral show is a veritable scum banquet, where spectators can absorb a whole story of crime in much less time than they could read it. Is it any wonder that immorality is rampant in our world, even among young boys and girls, when shows are allowed to present women in tights or nearly nude, while they are hugged and kissed by men who are thus involved in dishonorable and diabolical schemes?
Many cartoons are of the yellow scum quality. It would seem that the archenemy himself had taken up the pencil and the brush, and was doing master strokes of evil in presenting all sorts of wickedness. It is too bad that the blessed art of picture making should be so diverted from its legitimate use as to become a monster power for evil.
Children and young people are fed upon sickening travesties of love, marriage, and home life, these sacred relationships being represented as of minor importance. When unfaithfulness in the marriage relation is portrayed as a joke; when young girls are shown in intimate relationship with married men; when all that is sacred in the family circle is derided and laughed at, and such terms as “the old man,” “the old woman,” and “the kids” become familiar, how can boys and girls receive the right impressions concerning the holy and solemn obligations of marriage? The sure results of this demoralizing education are seen in blighted hopes and ruined lives.
Ridiculous Caricatures of Scripture
How can faith in the Bible be preserved when children see ridiculous portrayals of creation; when sport is made of the Flood, and the saving mission of Noah’s ark is considered of no importance; when Bible characters are ridiculed, and the end of the world is scoffed at? But we need not be surprised that these influences are abroad at the present time; for we read in 2 Tim. 3:1, 13: “In the last days” “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” Also in 2 Peter 3:3, 4: “There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming?”
Eve had a curiosity to know evil; but that knowledge was the downfall of the human race. Many to-day have this same curiosity; but if gratified, they are much worse off than before. One cannot really know evil without being evil. The boy or the girl who longs to know the evils of the world, becomes more and more evil as that knowledge increases. One need not attend a spiritualistic séance in order to become convinced that there is something dangerously supernatural there. All that we ought to know about it, the Bible teaches us. One need not read the sacred books of Oriental religions in order to become convinced that there is no salvation in them. The Bible plainly says there is no salvation except through Christ; and that is all we need to know about it. One need not read biographies of criminals in order to ascertain that such lives are miserable failures. The question for every youth to consider is not, How close can I go to the brink of the precipice of sin and not fall over? but, How far can I keep from it?
Music Perverted
“Ragtime” music is scum; and O, how the rising generation is fed upon it! Even phonographic records are dispensing it by the wholesale. The music of a household indicates its character; and the education received through the channel of music, exerts a telling influence upon everyday life. There is an enormous demand for “ragtime” music, or there would not be the supply that exists to-day. Sickening, silly, vulgar words, accompanied by this “ragtime” music, are a powerful factor in the demoralizing education of the present time. Parents should guard their homes against bad music, as they would guard them against every other influence for evil.
Bad music and bad reading and bad pictures go hand in hand. Many printed romances are filled with evil suggestions, which awaken the passions of the youth, and subject them to temptations which may mean their downfall. It is only a step here from the imaginary to the real.
Intoxicating Novels
When a young girl becomes so absorbed in some dreamy printed vista that she cannot take her eyes from the scene long enough to gain a near view of some of the realities of life which demand her attention, and when a young boy has so far left the world that he does not even recognize his own name when called to dinner, because his reading makes him oblivious to his surroundings, it is time for parents to become conscious of the fact that their children are suffering from a comatose state of mind due to poisoning from literary scum, and seek for a remedy—if the condition has not already become incurable.
Beware of the reading room found in the garret, the barn loft, or the back alley. The reading matter found in such places is scum of the vilest sort. That which is unfit to read in the family library or living room, is unfit to read anywhere. It is deadly poison. “Touch not, taste not, handle not.” As well toy with a serpent, and receive its deadly sting, as become fatally inoculated with the virus of loathsome literary scum, which is placed within easy reach of the promising boys and girls of America.
Much Room on the Uplands
The beautiful uplands of life are not densely populated. And yet here may be found sufficient health-giving literary cream to supply the needs of the world. No one need go hungry or unsatisfied. This cream is worthy of appropriating. It will impart strength and vigor to aid one in becoming of real service in the affairs of life. The old-fashioned Bible is the purest literary349cream to be found. It does not contain a single disease germ. It is the very best mental food that any one can possibly secure. It is suited to the needs of every human soul in every country and in every climate.
No one has ever yet been harmed by reading its beautiful love story, or by feasting the mind upon its divine pictures of the glories of heaven.
Literary cream includes that which harmonizes with the Bible; that which elucidates its principles, and impresses its precious lessons. Such reading lifts the soul above all criminality, and fills the mind with such thoughts as make the world better.
Parents, what are your children feasting upon — scum or cream?
