"But," she objected, when she was informed, "I think I've heard you say he is not very tall. Orlando was such a tall man!"
"Was he?" I ventured, coming in at that moment. "I don't remember that about him. Who told you he was tall?"
"Why, it is in the book!" she exclaimed.
Every one present besought her to mention where.
"Don't you remember?" she said incredulously. "He says Rosalind is just as high as his heart; that wouldn't be quite up to his shoulder. And she says she is more than common tall! So he must have been 'specially tall. Don't you remember?" she asked again, looking perplexedly at our blank faces.
There are so many bonds of understanding between American children of the present time and their grown-up relatives and friends. Is not one of the best of these that which has come out of our national impulse toward giving the boys and girls the books we love, "cut small"; and showing them how to read those books as we read the larger books from which they are made? "What kinds of books do American children read?" foreigners inquire. We are able to reply, "The same kinds that grown-up Americans read." "And why do they read them?" may be the next question. Again we can answer, "For much the same reasons that the grown-ups read them." "How do they use the libraries?" might be the next query. Still we could say, "As grown people use them." And if yet another query, "Why?" be put, we might reply, "Because, unlike any other children in the world, American children are almost as completely 'exposed to books' as are their elders."
VI
THE CHILD IN CHURCH
Within the past few months, I have had the privilege of looking over the answers sent by men and women—most of them fathers and mothers—living in many sections of the United States, in response to an examination paper containing among other questions this one: "Should church-going on the part of children be compulsory or voluntary?" In almost every case the answer was, "It should be voluntary." In practically all instances the reason given was, "Worship, like love, is at its best only when it is a free-will offering."
It was not a surprise to read again and again, in longer or in shorter form, such an answer, based upon such a reason. The religious liberty of American children of the present day is perhaps the most salient fact of their lives. Without doubt, the giving to them of this liberty is the most remarkable fact in the lives of their elders. No grown people were ever at any time willingly allowed to exercise such freedom in matters pertaining to religion as are the children of our nation at the present time. Not only is churchgoing not compulsory; religion itself is voluntary.