CULTIVATING CHILDREN'S TASTE IN READING.
By Editor
H. Clay Trumbull, the efficient editor of the S. S. Times, gives these wise suggestions, which it would be well for all parents to read and adopt:- In all the endless discussion about the sort of books available for the Sabbath-school library, it seems to be taken for granted that children's taste in reading is a fixed factor; and that the books selected must be conformed to that taste, rather than that taste conformed to the books selected. Herein is a radical error concerning the whole library question. In matters of dress and diet, and of sleep and exercise, a wise parent or guardian expects to conform a child's taste to the proper standard, instead of allowing the child to settle all these points according to his natural preferences. What if the child would like to sit up half the night, and to lie abed until the middle of the forenoon? Is he to be indulged accordingly; or to be trained to a different liking and doing? What if he dislikes thick clothing in cold weather, and wants to walk in the wet without overshoes? It is the parent's plain duty, and it is every sensible parent's aim, to bring his child to see the folly of such a course as this. A child may, to begin with, like only sweet things, or only sour things, or may dislike meat, or fish, or milk, or fruit,—and show such positiveness in his likes and dislikes as makes it a matter of no small difficulty to overcome and change them. But the parent has an undeniable responsibility for both the kind and amount of food and drink taken by his child; and in the discharge of that responsibility he ought to, and he can, shape and cultivate the child's likes and dislikes in eating and drinking. He is to decide what, all things considered, is best adapted to that child's bodily needs and general welfare; and then he is to teach that child to use, and finally to enjoy, the diet provided for him. In the long run, only the child whose tastes are thus restrained and directed, really knows what it is to enjoy eating and drinking. Natural tastes which have never been cultivated are rarely a source of profit or comfort to child or man. And this is a truth which has the same force in its application to mental food as to food for the body. To the natural mind, fancy commonly takes precedence of fact, and the exceptional has a charm not found in the commonplace. A child ordinarily enjoys the realm of imagination more than the sphere of practical life. It is easier to get a boy to play soldier, or robber, or bear; or to get a girl to play company, or party, with her dolls—than to get either of them to give as much time and strength to gathering last evening's playthings, or to doing a little plain sewing. Most children find an attractiveness in entertaining their little neighbors, or in going out to see other children, which they do not find in the routine of quiet home life; and a menagerie or a picnic has a great many more children admirers than a day school. A fairy tale, or a story of romantic adventure, is more pleasing to the average child than the straightforward recital of actual events in the world about them. And books which excite strong feeling, and too often those which gratify a prurient curiosity, command in his mind an interest not drawn out by books which give counsel and information within the bounds of good sense and propriety. In all these things it is evident that the natural taste of the child must not be permitted to run on absolutely unchecked. There must be wise repression and guidance and cultivation. Play, and visiting, and going to places of entertainment, and hearing fairy stories, and reading books of romance, must have their limitations, and at times their forbiddings; and work, and staying indoors, and hearing plain facts, and reading books of counsel and instruction, must have their place in the child's life and training. To secure this guidance and repression, calls for wisdom and firmness and ingenuity on the part of the parent; but on every side parents are exercising these called-for qualities with eminent success. The story is a familiar one of the good father, who, finding his boys quite tired with walking while yet some distance from home, cut two sticks from a thicket they were passing, and gave them to the boys to straddle and play horse with, and in this way enabled the little fellows to trot along at good speed with the strength restored to them by their imagination. And Dr. Vincent tells of his inducing his little boy to eat his prescribed portion of bread and butter, when on one occasion it was more than ordinarily unwelcome, by cutting it in square pieces and arranging them in order as a locomotive and cars, and then inviting the boy to devour the entire train, car by car, locomotive included. What mother is not familiar with some effort in this line every day of her life, to refresh the flagging spirits of her little ones, or to furnish occupation for their restless energies? Why should so much more of such work be done in every other sphere of child training than in that of its religious reading? A wise parent can train his children to an interest in any book that they ought to be interested in. It would not be fair for him to expect in every case, the same books to please and profit a quiet and sensitive daughter, and a wide-awake and adventurous son. He ought to consider the characteristics and needs of his children severally, and then select for them books suited to their comprehension, and to their necessities of being. Nor is it enough for him to pick out the proper book and put it into the hands of his child. He should talk over its topic in advance, or by some suggestion or inquiry should excite an interest in the book or its writer, that his child would have a desire to become possessed of its contents, or familiar with its style. And there should be timeliness in the mention of particular books, to add to their preliminary attractiveness. When, for example, the death of Jacob Abbott was announced, it was a good time for a father to tell his children of his early reading of the Rollo Books, or the Franconia Stories, or Marco Paul's Adventures, or the Young Christian series, and to induce them to want to read such of those books as their father thought would best suit their case. More than one father did try that plan with success at that very time. When the Sabbath-school lesson on the Sermon on the Mount told of the duty of trusting all our interests to our Father's care, it would have been well to point a child to that wonderful story of three in the life of Christian Gellert, as told in the little book, "Trust in God."