We get out of reading just what we put into it. That is to say, the same selection read by different people will have just as many meanings as there are people reading it. By assistance, a person may be caused to see more in what he reads and in time may approximate the full understanding of his teacher. But it is unwise and useless to expect a child to read with the same appreciation that an adult has. Accordingly the father, if he is wise, will be satisfied when his boy is really interested in a thoroughly good selection if he sees at the same time that the boy is setting about his interpretation in the right way. To illustrate: If you are reading about a storm at sea and you are a survivor of a shipwreck in such a storm, your appreciation of the description will be infinitely more vivid than that of your son, who has not even seen the sea. All that you can do is to give him some idea of the power of the waves, make him feel that the sight is a thrilling one and that there is imminent danger to life and property in the storm. Some time he will have the experience to interpret and then his mind will recur to the description and he will understand it somewhat as you do now. This brings us to think for a moment on the permanent value of all that is read. The mind holds things in abeyance, brings them out to the light now and then, and each time finds them more and more intelligible and influential. Many a maxim learned in youth when an understanding of it was impossible becomes a power for good for the person in later years when its inner significance appears.

Some poetry will appeal to boys, even though they may look askance at most of it. Some lyrics are virile and powerful, well worthy the study of the keenest minds. There is an unfounded prejudice against poetry in many men because of the fancied puerility of it and its silly sentiment. Such a prejudice always disappears if the person reads enough and selects the things that are worthy of study. Narrative poems are more likely to appeal to men and boys than the lyrics. When the narrative is a stirring one and the action dramatic, the poetic form adds decidedly to its interest and effectiveness. Take, for instance, that little poem by Robert Browning that is known as Incident of the French Camp (Volume IV, page 174). No man can read it without being stirred by it, and its appeal to boys is immediate and strong. But strong as it is, the whole influence of it may be intensified if it is discussed in the manner indicated on the pages immediately after the poem. What we would have you do is to read the little epic with your boy and talk it over with him along the lines of the comments given. It will not be necessary for you to point the moral. He will see it for himself, but if you can show a little enthusiasm and delight in the incident he will go away feeling better toward you and will be a convert to poetry, at least to some kinds of it. Later in life the lesson will come back to him and he will seek for more of the same sort.

There are a great number of poems of similar import in the books. Any one of the following will be capital for reading aloud with your boy. Try them and be convinced.

Any one of the national anthems or patriotic poems is fine reading and a source for many a kindly talk that will tend to make a better citizen of your son and perhaps give you a fresher and truer conception of your own duties and responsibilities to the government. These you may readily find from the index in the tenth volume, under the title, Patriotic Poems.

For older boys there are plenty of good selections, and the discussion of some of them must help to bring nearer to the lad his increasing responsibilities. A normal boy of sixteen has a lot of the man in him and wants to be treated as a man, at least to have his ideas, hopes and ambitions given some consideration. He does not want always to be called “Bobby” or “Jimmy” or “Tommy.” He likes better to be called “Smith,” “Jones,” or “Robinson,” or whatever his last name is. He is tired of being told to do this and that and would like to join in some of the family councils and feel that father is beginning to see the man and forget the “kid.” He will be interested in anything that relates to commerce, or manufacture or government if it is presented to him in such a way that he can “be somebody” in the discussion.

It is easy to interest boys in speaking, in orations, in debates. In Journeys (Volume IX, page 321) is printed the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln. It is the one great, masterly American address, noted not only for its perfect construction, but for its sentiment, its power and its brevity. In no other great address are all these elements combined. Tested by any standard it rings true in thought and is perfect in form. It is worth while to commit it to memory, and father and son should be equally interested in the task, if it can be called a task. Preceding the address is a note giving its historical setting, and following it is an analysis of the thought and a series of questions tending to give the thought a more personal application. The Fate of the Indians and A Call to Arms, both in Volume IX, are good orations accompanied by studies.

An essay that is in effect almost an oration is the extract from the Impeachment of Warren Hastings by Macaulay (Volume IX, page 32), and in this volume are studies on that essay (page 248).

The Boston Massacre by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a pleasing bit of history which in this volume (page 370) is used as the basis of a study in argument. You may prefer to read the studies first and arrange the arguments for your sons or for yourself and your boy. It is surprising into what different directions the argument will lead you and how many interesting questions will arise which will make good subjects for discussion. To make conversation worth while there is needed only something interesting to talk about. To be a good talker is worth a great deal to any young man and there is no better way to give him this power than by conversing freely with him while he is young.

Moral instruction is difficult. A thousand little things tend to neutralize it and there is an almost universal spirit of opposition to moral teaching, on the part of youth. And yet it is easy to give moral lessons in an indirect way that shall arouse no opposition and that shall be effective for lifetime. Journeys is full of what for lack of a better name we call character-building literature. Some of it is adapted to boys and girls of a very tender age and more of it to the older children. The Cubes of Truth (Volume VI, page 406), by Oliver Wendell Holmes, is a beautiful little essay that expresses a great truth in a way to impress it indelibly upon the memory of every person who reads it. So clear is the language, so clever the idea that the selection is read with absorbing interest, and so impressive is the lesson that no real attention need be called to it. In reading it the beauty of the language and the quaintness of the figure are the real subjects of discussion, but all the time the great lesson is making its subtle appeal. Cardinal Newman’s Definition of a Gentleman (Volume IV, page 170) is more obviously a didactic selection, but here again the definition is given so clearly and so forcibly that no possible offense can be taken and the weight of the statements will produce their effect without much comment.