The methods of guiding the young in the paths of literature fall naturally into two groups,—the first being adapted to childhood not yet arrived at the power of reading alone, the second adapted to later years. There is no sharp line of division or exclusion, but only a general separation; for the methods peculiarly appropriate to each period apply to some extent in the other. Some children are able to read weighty books at three or four years of age, but most boys and girls have to plod along till they are eight or ten before they can read much alone. I will consider the periods of child life I have referred to, each by itself.
The Age of Stories.—It is not necessary or proper to wait until a child can read, before introducing it to the best literature. Most of the books written for children have no permanent value, and most of the reading books used in primary and grammar schools contain little or no genuine literature, and what they do contain is in fragments. Portions of good books are useful, if the story of each part is complete, but children do not like the middle of a story without the beginning and end; they have the sense of entirety, and it should be satisfied. And it is not difficult to do this. Literature affords a multitude of beautiful stories of exceeding interest to children, and of permanent attractiveness through all the after years of their lives. Such literature is as available, as a means of teaching the art of reading, as is the trash in dreary droning over which the precious years of childhood are spent in our public schools. The development of the child mind follows the same course as the development of the mind of the race. The little boy loves the wonderful and the strong, and nearly everything is wonderful to him except himself. Living things especially interest him. Every child is a born naturalist; his heart turns to birds and beasts, flowers and stars. He is hungry for stories of animals, giants, fairies, etc. Myths and fairy tales are his natural food. His power of absorbing and retaining them is marvellous. One evening a few weeks ago a little boy who is as yet scarcely able to read words of two and three letters asked me for a story. I made an agreement with him that whatever I told him, he should afterward repeat to me, and then gave him the story of the elephant who squirted muddy water over the cruel tailor that pricked his trunk with a needle. No sooner had I finished than he threw his arms around my neck and begged for another story. I told him eight in rapid succession, some of them occupying three or four minutes, and then asked him to tell me about the elephants, dogs, bears, etc., that I had spoken of. He recited every story with astonishing accuracy and readiness, and apparently without effort, and would have been ready for eight more bits of Wood or Andersen, if his bedtime had not intervened. If parents would take as much pains to satisfy the mind hunger of their children as they do to fulfil their physical wants, and give them the best literature as well as the best beef and potatoes, the boys and girls would have digested the greater part of mythology, natural science, and the best fiction by the time they are able to read. Children should be fed with the literature that represents the childhood of the race. Out of that literature has grown all literature. Give a child the contents of the great books of the dawn, and you give him the best foundation for subsequent literary growth, and in after life he will be able to follow the intricate interweaving of the old threads throughout all modern thought. He has an immense affinity for those old books, for they are full of music and picturesqueness, teeming with vigorous life, bursting with the strange and wonderful. In the following list parents and teachers will find abundant materials for the culture of the little ones, either by reading aloud to them, or still better by telling them the substance of what they have gathered by their own reading of these famous stories and ditties. Pictures are always of the utmost value in connection with books and stories, as they impart a vividness of conception that words alone are powerless to produce. One plea for sincerity I must make,—truth and frankness from the cradle to the grave. Do not delude the children. Do not persuade them that a fairy tale is history. I have a sad memory of my disgust and loss of confidence in human probity when I discovered the mythical character of Kriss Kringle, and I believe many children are needlessly shocked in this way.
List of Materials for Story-telling and for the Instruction and Amusement of Childhood.
"Mother Goose," "Jack and the Bean-Stalk," "Jack the Giant-Killer," "Three Bears," "Red Riding-Hood," "The Ark," "Hop o' my Thumb," "Puss in Boots," "Samson," "Ugly Duckling," "The Horse of Troy" (Virgil), "Daniel in the Lion's Den," etc.
Andersen's "Fairy Tales." Delightful to all children.
Grimm's "Fairy Tales."
De Garmo's "Fairy Tales."
Craik's "Adventures of a Brownie."
"Parents' Assistant," by Maria Edgeworth, recommended by George William Curtis, Mary Mapes Dodge, Charles Dudley Warner, etc.
"Zigzag Journeys," a series of twelve books, written by Hezekiah Butterworth, one of the editors of the "Youth's Companion." As might be supposed, they are among the very best and most enduringly popular books ever written for young people.
Wood's books of Anecdotes about Animals, and many other works of similar character, that may be obtained from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 19 Milk Street, Boston. The literature distributed by this Society is filled with the spirit of love and tenderness for all living things, and is one of the best influences that can come into a child's life.
Mary Treat's "Home Book of Nature." One of the best books of science for young people.
Bulfinch's "Age of Fable." A book that is exhaustive of Greek and Roman mythology, but meant for grown folks.
Bulfinch's "Age of Chivalry."
Fiske's "Myths and Myth Makers." Brief, deep, and suggestive.
Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" and "Tanglewood Tales." Books that no house containing children should lack.
Cox's "Tales of Ancient Greece."
Baldwin's "Stories of the Golden Age."
Forestier's "Echoes from Mist Land." An interesting study of the Nibelungenlied.
Lucian's "Dialogues of the Gods." Written to ridicule ancient superstitions.
Curtin's "Folk Lore of Ireland."
Stories of Greek Heroes, Kingsley.
Stories from Bryant's Odyssey.
Stories from Church's "Story of the Iliad."
Stories from Church's "Story of the Æneid."
Stories from Herodotus, Church.
Stories from the Greek Tragedians, Church.
Stories of Charlemagne, Hanson.
Stories from "Arabian Nights," Bulfinch.
Stories from "Munchausen," and Maundeville.
Stories from Chaucer, especially "Griselda." (From Chaucer, or from Mrs. Haweis' book.)
Stories told to a Child, by Jean Ingelow.
Stories from the "Morte D'Arthur," Malory or Lanier.
Stories from Lanier's "Froissart."
Stories from Shakspeare.
Stories of the Revolution, Riedesel.
Stories from American and English History about the Magna Charta, Henry VIII., Queen Elizabeth, Cromwell, Pitt, Gladstone, Boston Tea Party, Declaration of Independence, Washington, Rebellion, Lincoln, etc.
Stories of American life, from "Oldtown Folks," "Sam Lawson's Fireside Stories," and from the best novels.
Stories from the "Book of Golden Deeds," Miss Yonge.
Stories from Bolton's "Poor Boys who became Famous," and "Girls who became Famous."
Stories from Smiles's "Self-Help." Full of brief, inspiring stories of great men.
Stones from Todd's "Students' Manual."
Stories from Irving's "Sketch Book," Rip Van Winkle, etc.
Stories from Green's "Short History of the English People."
Stories from Doyle's "History of the United States." One of the very best brief histories.
Stories from Mackenzie's "History of the Nineteenth Century."
Stories from Coffin's "Story of Liberty."
Stories from Freeman's "General Sketch of History."
Stories from the "Stories of the Nations." (Putnam's Series.)
Stories from the books of Columns 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, and 14 of [Table I].
The story of Christ and his Apostles. (It is scarcely needful to mention Bible stories in general. Every child born into a civilized family is saturated with them; but the simple story of Christ's life as an entirety is too seldom told them.)
The story of Buddha, from the "Light of Asia."
The story of Mahomet, Irving.
The story of Confucius.
The story of Socrates drinking the hemlock, from Plato, or from Fénelon's "Lives of the Philosophers," which contains many splendid Greek stories.
The story of Prometheus, from Æschylus.
The story of Diogenes in his Tub.
The story of Thermopylæ and other battles, from Cressy.
The story of Carthage, from Putnam's series of the "Stories of the Nations." (Nine to eleven years.)
The story of Roland, Baldwin.
The story of the Cid, Southey.
The story of the Nibelungenlied. (See Baldwin's "Story of Siegfried.")
The story of Faust, from "Zigzag Journeys."
The story of "Reynard the Fox," Goethe.
The story of Pythagoras and the transmigration of souls.
The story of Astronomy, from Herschel, Proctor, etc.
The story of Geology, from Lyell, Dawson, Miller, etc., or from Dana's "The Geological Story, Briefly Told."
The story of Athena, Pluto, Neptune, Apollo, Juno, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury, Charon, Vulcan, Zeus, Io, Orpheus, and Eurydice, Phaeton, Arachne, Ariadne, Iphigenia, Ceres, Vesta, Herakles, Minerva, Venus, Scylla and Charybdis, Hercules, Ulysses, Helen, Achilles, Æneas, etc., from Bulfinch's "Age of Fable," "Zigzag Journeys," etc.
The story of William Tell, the Man in the Moon, etc., from S. Baring Gould's "Curious Myths."
The story of the Courtship of Miles Standish.
The story of the Nürnburg Stove, from Ouida's "Bimbi."
The story of Robert Bruce.
The story of Circe's Palace, from "Tanglewood Tales."
The story of Pandora's Box, from the "Wonder Book."
The story of Little Nell, from "The Old Curiosity Shop."
The story of the Boy in "Vanity Fair."
Many other books might be placed on the list of parent-helpers. Indeed, the perfect guidance of youth would require a perfect knowledge of literature throughout its breadth and depth; but the above suggestions, if followed in any large degree, will result in a far better training than most children now receive.
THE FORMATION OF A GOOD READING HABIT.
As the child learns to read by itself, the books from which were drawn the stones it has heard may be given to it, care being taken that every gift shall be adapted to the ability of the little one. The fact that the boy has heard the story of Horatius at the Bridge does not diminish, but vastly increases, his desire to read the "Lays of Ancient Rome." When he comes to the possession of the book, it seems to him like a discovery of the face of a dear friend with whose voice he has long been familiar. I well remember with what delight I adopted the "Sketch Book" as one of my favorites on finding Rip Van Winkle in it.
Below will be found a list of books intended as a suggestion of what should be given to children of various ages. The larger the number of good books the child can be induced to read each year, the better of course, so long as his powers are not overtaxed, and the reading is done with due thoroughness. But if only four or five are selected from each year's list, the boy will know more of standard literature by the time he is sixteen, than most of his elders do. Each book enters the list at the earliest age an ordinary child would be able to read it with ease, and it may be used then or at any subsequent age; for no books are mentioned which are not of everlasting interest and profit to childhood, manhood, and age. Many of the volumes named below may also be used by parents and teachers as story-mines. There is no sharp line between the periods of story-telling and of reading. Most children read simple English readily at eight or ten years of age; many do a large amount of reading long before that, and nearly all do some individual work in the earlier period. The change should be gradual. For the stimulus that comparison gives, story-telling and reading aloud should be continued long after the child is able to read alone; in truth, it ought never to cease. Story-telling ought to be a universal practice. Stories should be told to and by everybody. One of the best things grown folks can do is to tell each other the substance of their experience from day to day; and probably no finer means of education exists than to have the children give an account at supper or in the hour or two following, of what they have seen, heard, read, thought, and felt during the day. In the same way reading solus should lap over into the early period as far as possible. One of the greatest needs of the day is a class of books that shall put solid sense into very simple words. A child can grasp the wonderful, strong, loving, pathetic, and even the humorous and critical, long before it can overcome the mechanical difficulties of reading. By so much as we diminish these, we push education nearer to the cradle. Charles Dudley Warner says, "As a general thing, I do not believe in books written for children;" and Phillips Brooks, Marietta Holley, Brooke Herford, and others express a similar feeling. But the trouble is not with the plan of writing for children, but with the execution. If the highest thoughts and feelings were written in the simplest words,—written as a wise parent tells them to his little ones,—then we should have a juvenile literature that could be recommended. As it is, most writers for babies seem to have far less sense than the babies. Their books are filled with unnatural, make-believe emotions, and egregious nonsense in the place of ideas. The best prose for young people will be found in the works of Hawthorne, Curtis, Warner, Holmes, Irving, Addison, Goldsmith, Burroughs, and Poe; and the best poets for them are Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Burns, and Homer. Books that flavor sense with fun, as do those of Curtis, Holmes, Lowell, Holley, Stowe, Irving, Goldsmith, Warner, Addison, and Burroughs, are among the best means of creating in any heart, young or old, a love for fine, pure writing. P. T. Barnum, a man whose great success is largely due to his attainment of that serenity of mind which Lowell calls the highest result of culture, says: "I should, above almost everything else, try to cultivate in the child a kindly sense of humor. Wherever a pure, hearty laugh rings through literature, he should be permitted and taught to enjoy it." This judgment comes from a knowledge of the sustaining power a love of humor gives a man immersed in mental cares and worriments. Lincoln is, perhaps, the best example of its power.
It is often an inspiration to a boy to know that a book he is reading has helped and been beloved by some one whose name is to him a synonym of greatness,—to know, for example, that Franklin got his style from the "Spectator," which he studied diligently when a boy; that Francis Parkman from fifteen to twenty-one obtained more pleasure and profit from Scott than from any other writer; that Darwin was very fond of Mark Twain's "Treatise on the Frog;" that Marietta Holley places Emerson, Tennyson, and Eliot next to the Bible in her list of favorites; that Senator Hoar writes Emerson, Wordsworth, and Scott next after the Bible and Shakspeare; that Robert Collyer took great delight in Irving's "Sketch Book," when a youth; that the great historian Lecky is said to be in the habit of taking Irving with him when he goes to bed; that Phillips Brooks read Jonson many times when a boy, and that Lockhart's Scott was a great favorite with him, though the Doctor attaches no special significance to either of these facts; that Susan Coolidge thinks "Hans Brinker" is the best of all American books for children, etc. Similar facts may be found in relation to very many of the best books, and will aid much in arousing an interest in them.
Plato, Bacon, Goethe, Spencer, Emerson, and many others of the best are for the most part too difficult to be properly grasped until the mind is more mature than it usually is at sixteen. No precise rules, however, can be laid down on this subject, I have known a boy read Spencer's "First Principles" and Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister" at sixteen, and gain a mastery of them. All I have attempted to do is to make broad suggestions; experiment in each case must do the rest.