Reading for Children

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 8, 1902

Reading for Children

One of the popular magazines says that “the matter of reading for children is of great importance, and presents many perplexities to fathers and mothers who are eager to make the best use of the most impressionable years of childhood.” Then the editor recommends several books for children which were selected by “a group of men and women who, by reason of special study of the subject, and, in many cases, of successful practice of the art of writing, are qualified to speak with authority.” But the books thus recommended are mostly bare fiction, and the others are truth so adulterated with fiction’s elaboration that the chaff is far in excess of the wheat. It is quite common, in recommending books of this character, to say that such a volume is “founded on fact,” or that “it is truth with enough fiction thrown in to make it interesting.” Thus the children are taught that truth is dull and uninteresting, and the impression is too prevalent among people of all ages. But it is truth alone that can save and sanctify.