What Our Children Shall Be
By C. F. Koch
PARENTS should ask, What sort of men and women do I want my children to be? Are they headed on the road to that ideal? It is comparatively easy to forecast the future15of a child, not in detail, of course, but broadly. What children sow, they reap as men and women. The laws of the world are constant. Now there is nothing more potent in shaping human life than reading. This is important because reading sharpens thought, and as a man thinketh so is he. If I let my boy read penny-dreadfuls and dime novels, he is sure to degenerate, even if he does not run away to sea, or commit highway robbery, or shoot his playmate accidentally. He is sure to have barren interests, and to take delight in those things which conserve not a wholesome cheerfulness, but a superficial mirth. If, on the other hand, I direct his reading, I am sure his spiritual growth will be healthy and constant to the end of his days.— C. F. Koch.