“There is a world,” says Walter Taylor Field, “into which children may enter and find noble companionship. It is the world of books. Let your boy escape for a time from the meanness of the boy across the street, and let him roam the woods with Hiawatha, sail the seas with Sindbad, build stockades with Crusoe, fight dragons with Jason, joust with Galahad; let him play at quoits with Odysseus, and at football with Tom Brown. These are playmates who will never quarrel with him nor bully him, but from whom he will learn to be brave, self-reliant, manly, quick to do for others, and set with his face toward the light.” The character-building qualities of such books are as unquestioned as their intellectual value.
A library has been termed by Lord Lytton a “literary pharmacopœia” which contains the remedies for mental and moral shortcomings. Modified to suit the requirements of boyhood it means that doses of literature should be administered as specifics for diseases of character, as well as to act as tonics to build up the moral virtues. For the boy inclined to deceit books are prescribed in which truthfulness and honor are exalted; for the lazy boy is prescribed the tale of monumental achievement through industry; the anemic bookworm should receive a course of reading concerning athletics, sports, and life in the open; disloyalty and disobedience would call for a diet of stories in which the antithesis of these defects is exploited. In a word, it is an attempt to correct his moral and temperamental deficiencies by placing him under the influence of the heroic characters of fiction who exhibit the moral qualities which the boy lacks. This device is no longer a mere theory; it has been tried in innumerable instances and always with good, if variable, results. The effectiveness of this unique plan will doubtless be in proportion to the skill of the diagnostician in recognizing the exact moral ailment and the accuracy of the literary physician in prescribing the corrective reading.
Every boy admires a hero and seeks to emulate him. If his hero is one of questionable morals, the effect of his companionship on the boy reader will be almost as pernicious as the influence of an evil chum in daily life. On the other hand, companionship with the noble characters of fiction cultivates in the reader the same virtues as those exhibited by the hero and inevitably establishes moral standards. When the boy demands that virtue shall be rewarded and vice punished it is an evidence of his ethical evolution, and the continued recurrence of these instances in his reading finally fixes for all time his criterion of moral values.
The dust-covered books which formerly filled the shelves of our Sunday-school libraries depicting milk-and-water characters and heroes of immaculate goody-goodyness, happily, have been replaced by books portraying virile, red-blooded, intensely human heroes who are not afraid to get their clothes dirty. No dust ever accumulates on such books but they do become worn and soiled with constant reading.
Stories of animal life are valuable when informative of their customs and habits and they generally inspire a love for animal heroes which prompts a manifestation of kindness toward all dumb creatures. Not infrequently the hidden moral contained in these stories is driven home as forcibly as in the best fiction in which human beings play the principal rôles.
A well selected juvenile magazine should find a place on every boy’s reading table, not so much for the value of its fiction—which is so variable in quality—as for its news features concerning the things which loom big in the boy’s life—school and college athletic events, Boy Scout meets, new games and sports, the latest improvements in wireless construction, and new ideas in handicraft. It is from such a journal that he obtains information of current events which are commanding the attention of all boys and he thus keeps abreast of the times in Boyville.
The book which furnishes entertainment as well as inspires interest commands the attention of the adolescent in the direct ratio that these elements conform to his psychological development. Juvenile fiction is usually interesting to the adult only when read from the juvenile viewpoint. When so read it may prove a fascinating recital of human aspirations and achievements as well as a profound study in the covert psychological impulses which actuate the several characters of the story.
“The great problem in juvenile reading for the parent,” to quote Franklin K. Mathiews, librarian of the Boy Scouts, “is to choose from the huge mass of boy’s books the ones the boy will like best and yet those which will be best for the boy.” It is obvious that he will not read what he does not like, but it does not follow that he should be given all books that he likes irrespective of their influence. Rest assured that your boy does not himself select a book because of its high moral tone or its qualities of uplift. He would doubtless side-step it if he suspected such influence. He is looking for thrills, excitement and adventure—something outside the domain of his everyday experience. If he finds them he is satisfied with the book irrespective of its tendencies for good or bad. I am now speaking of the average red-blooded boy and not the halo-crowned youth of supernal goodness. As long as we supply him with the needed thrills coupled with good influence, he will not go after the thrills coupled with bad influence. Juvenile fiction which does not count for character-culture is worthless. As he advances in years and increases his intellectual equipment his love for lurid tales will wane, and if his reading has been supervised, a desire for the best fiction, history, biography, essays, ethics, and poetry will easily and naturally take its place.
The limitations of this chapter have prevented more than a brief discussion of the influence of literature in shaping the boy’s character and intellect and the reader is referred to those books which will be found useful by the parent in outlining and directing a course of reading for the boy at his several periods of development from infancy to manhood. The first two volumes given below are especially valuable for their comprehensive lists of suitable books.
| TITLE | AUTHOR |
|---|---|
| The Children’s Reading | Olcott |
| Fingerposts to Children’s Reading | Field |
| How to Tell Stories to Children | Bryant |
| How to Teach Reading | Clark |
| Special Method in Primary Reading | McMurray |
| Special Method in the English Classics | McMurray |
| Books and Libraries | Lowell |
| Books and Culture | Mabie |
| Biblical Masterpieces | Moulton |
| Readings in Folklore | Skinner |
| History and Literature | Rice |
| Childhood in Literature and Art | Scudder |
| Little Folks’ Lyrics | Sherman |
| Counsel upon the Reading of Books | Van Dyke |
| Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks | Wiltse |