It has been said that in every child is seen the history of the race, and that from infancy to manhood he typifies every stage of progress the race has seen. In early years he loves the fables where animals speak, feel and act like human beings; for in former times mankind believed the fables to be truth. A child peoples his world with fairies, good and bad, and believes in the limitless power of magic. A little later he loves the deeds of the legendary heroes and revels in the marvelous acts of the more than human beings in whom the ancients believed. Later the stirring adventures of the real heroes of discovery and exploration, the heroic exploits of warriors on land and sea, and the courageous acts of noble men and women in every walk in life appeal to him; while still later, real history seizes the imagination of the youth, who now looks for the causes of things and learns to trace out their effects. He learns to reason and to separate truth from falsehood. Casting aside the wild tales of boyhood, he gathers up instead the facts of life and experience, and draws his inspiration from the noble works of the world’s greatest writers.
2. Reading Stories
In the development of literary taste, fiction plays as prominent a part as fact, and to fiction, considered in its broadest sense, every child is deeply indebted. Many err in thinking that a stern diet of facts is the only nutriment the child mind needs, and still others err only in a less degree when they look upon fiction as perhaps a necessary evil, but one which must be avoided as much as possible and set aside at the earliest possible moment. All fiction has in it some elements of truth, and they are the sources of the inspiration which comes to children when, in their world of make-believe, they live with their beautiful and heroic friends of the story books.
To read fiction properly is to get from it the truth, which, however, is often liable to be lost by the reader in the excitement of the tale, or to pass undetected in the easy-running sentences. As fictitious narratives in prose and poetry in the great majority of cases form the larger part of children’s reading, it is to them we should turn our attention. Before we begin their specific study a few principles claim our attention:
Good stories are the most helpful things a child can read.
The more intelligently and sympathetically a story is read, the more powerful for good it is.
The imagination of a child is the most powerful agent in the development of his mind.
The imagination acts only to combine, enlarge, or diminish ideas that enter the mind. It never creates.
On the nature of the ideas presented will depend the character of the imagination.
A vivid imagination fed with bad ideas is most destructive to human character. Good stories with high ideals can do no harm: but evil stories, particularly if attractive and entertaining, will undo the careful teaching of years.